


Devils On Our Side

by CurrieBelle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Necromancy, Romance, This is gonna hurt and I feel like I should apologize for that, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 16:11:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5423501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CurrieBelle/pseuds/CurrieBelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sylas and Delilah Briarwood wrote their story in their heads. It was a story of magic, of unlikely heroes, of triumph over adversity, and of the defeat of death himself. It was a fairytale, in their minds - a love story. </p><p>What a tale it must have been, to blind them to what they really were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Light & Minor Illusion

**Author's Note:**

> I am so, so sorry. As if the Briarwood feels weren't bad enough already, I had to go and write this. Five or six chapters in the works and they're all downhill from here. This will be running simultaneously with Wise Man's Tree until it's done.
> 
> The title is from a song off Jukebox the Ghost's Safe Travels album, which inspired a lot of this story. Check out the whole album. It might even cheer you up after this.

_While I still lived, I lived next to a lake. It was a beautiful lake, of a half-moon shape with a mirror-glass surface, curled in at the points as if cradling the manor across the water. The lake’s span was stout enough that I could see the darkened doors and windows of that distant house from my bedroom window. As far as I knew, the property was uninhabited, the long-abandoned acquisition of some careless foreign noble. A vacation home, perhaps – though the winters in Wildmount were intense enough to freeze the lake, it was pleasant enough in summer._

_My tale – my fairytale – began not in the summer, but at the first break of spring. It began after all the snow had melted, exposing the rich, black earth beneath, bare and crumbling with morning frost. It began not with the lake in particular - I lived there for so long with nothing resembling a beginning - but with a light. I looked from my window on the first snowless night of spring and saw a golden, flickering glow in the dark, like a far-off fire, or a flare of magic._

_What I did not know was that the house had been lived in, once. A talented young baroness had spent her youth there, though she left long before I was born. She abandoned the manor – again, before my birth – to marry a wealthy businessman in Tal’Dorei. I did not know that the golden glow was actually the mirage of hundreds of candles, marking this sweet baroness’s passing. I did not know that she wished to be laid to rest at her childhood home, nor that her husband and her daughter – her beautiful, brilliant daughter, at that time nearing twenty years of age – had gathered at that house, with the baroness’s many friends, to mourn._

_All I knew was that the difference – the strange light – intrigued me. My ardent curiosity and general restlessness overcame my good sense, and I stole away from my chambers in the middle of the night. I circled around towards the manor along a dark, wooded path, one I had not explored before. At its termination, I found a short, stony beach, and a lone figure in a white mourning dress, staring out across the lake._

_That is how I will always remember you, Delilah – as a solitary snowflake in the hands of a half-moon, flawless, frozen, and alone._

 --

Delilah, eyes shut, leaned into the wind ghosting over the lake, and willed the air to freeze her tears before they fell. If they did not fall, they did not exist. They would not leave traces on her painted face, nor imprints on the frigid ground. She could return to her mother’s funeral with her composure unscathed. A cool, distant look repelled questions, and she hated the questions almost as much as the condolences. Death did not feel like anything worth talking about. What good would words do her mother now?

She felt lost, permanently lost, a broken compass spinning wildly with no North to find. She had few dreams to cling to – distant images, concoctions of smoke and childish wishes, empty of detail, lacking any path to their realization. Perhaps she could go to Emon someday, and study magic, as her mother had always hoped. Or perhaps one day, she might be a mother herself, have a daughter of her own – one with a spark of the arcane in her blood, and eyes like hers. Dark as hers, and dark as her mother's before they closed.

Delilah painted her smiles on with finesse, but they rarely came naturally. She regarded her list of wishes with a distant fascination, the same way she regarded almost everything. Clinical, logical - and so she could see what frail hopes they were. They were insufficient. The aching void where her mother once stood consumed all thoughts of the future. Embalmed in darkness, with the wind numbing her cheeks, everything around her seemed distant. Delilah breathed out. One of her tears escaped, and at that moment, she gave in.

Beneath her feet, the stones of the beach clattered and cracked, slick with a coating of frost. She removed her glove, then swept one up from the ground, a stone about the size of her palm. She gripped it, embracing the chill, until its icy coat melted between her fingers. When the stone was good and clean, she slipped it into a pocket in her dress, feeling the comforting weight thump against her thigh. Thus done, she went searching for another – conscious, the whole time, of the slight shifting of the lake-water. The lake was too small for tides, as far as she knew, but it had that same gentle beckoning motion to it – the push, the hook, the seductive pull, and all the while the rasp of water over silt. She reached for a second stone.

“Is this your quarry, madam?”

 Delilah paused at the stranger’s voice, and slowly stood straight.

At the peak of the shallow bank of the lake stood a man she did not recognize. He was lit from behind by the distant, sensuous tumult of the funeral – the lights, the muffled hymns, the ripples of quiet conversation – everything that had vanished from her perception in her numb contemplation. From the light behind him, she could see he was tall, and nearly twice as broad as her – a build reminiscent of a city guard, or a mercenary. Where the light touched his hair, it was a rich, chestnut brown. It was difficult to see much else by her position - his face was blackened by shadow - but she knew, somehow, that he was smiling.

He raised his hand, slowly, once she had turned around, and presented something for her consideration – something small and fine, difficult to see for the light shining through it. Delilah narrowed her eyes, and saw a small, teardrop-shaped crystal, spinning gently from a silver hook. An earring. She touched her earlobes, self-conscious – one was bare and chill; from the other dangled the twin of the earring the stranger held. The jewel must have slipped free whilst she was gathering rocks.

She wondered how long he’d been watching her, marveled at how lucky he’d been to find the jewel in the first place. And, eventually, she realized she had never seen him before. Her heart immediately twisted with shock and revulsion. This man was not among her guests, and therefore trespassing – on her mother’s _funeral_. Delilah felt for the stone in her pocket, and briefly considered throwing it.

Instead, she approached him in silence. He did not move. At a whispered word, easy and familiar, she lit the stone with a flare of arcane light. It flashed brilliantly, a star in her palm, before she sealed her fingers around it. She raised it, illuminating the interloper’s face.

Had she picked another colour, a slightly different shade of light, the moment – their entire lives – might have played out differently. But it was gold she picked, a particular gold, and that gold lit warmth and richness in the stranger’s dark brown eyes, and softened his high, broad cheekbones. He had a sly, animal countenance, like a wolf or a fox, some clever predator caught off-guard by her magic trick. Surprise did not look natural on him, though it was certainly understandable. She was equally surprised. She, too, had felt a sudden, baffling, powerful recognition lacing them together – like fate, but more organic – a knowledge – a shared understanding – the very wordless thing that, because it had no salient phrase to express it, could not be spoken of at all.

Instead, Delilah squeezed the stone harder, swallowed, and said, “You’re interrupting.”

The teardrop crystal spun, catching the light, refracting it at perfect intervals, like a lighthouse. He let it spin, and answered, “Interrupting what?”

“A funeral,” she said. Regardless of that shocking connection they felt, the word reminded her of the truth. He was trespassing at the most disrespectful time, and her loyalty to her late mother would not allow that to go unchallenged. In a way, she was grateful – it was easier to bare her teeth against an adversary than handle her feelings alone.

At her curt voice, an uncomfortable twitch passed across his mouth. She decoded every layer of its meaning, in a simple second of absolute clarity – curiosity warring with shame. “I apologize,” he said. “I had no idea.” His voice was rich, intoxicating. Every word pulled her deeper into a dark, alluring daze, with syllables that sank, low, round, drawling and full. “But am I correct in assuming this is yours?”

She tilted her head, and the solitary earring swung counter to her motion. “Of course,” she answered.

He took a step closer, prodded the air with the earring. “If I may?”

It was a strange request, one she would have refused anyone else. Yet she turned her head away, tilting her ear towards him. A leather-clad fingertip slipped under her chin, and angled her gaze into the shadowy trees along the lakeshore. She felt a single needle-sharp scratch along her ear, then, as smooth as a pin piercing fabric, he threaded the wire through her flesh. The little crystal pendulum swung, in diminuendo, until it settled. The interloper’s hand lingered on her neck, the warm leather clinging ever so slightly to her skin. Delilah waited until he released her, and then settled onto the stones – she had risen onto her toes, as light as air, and fell again with equal ease and silence.

“Perfect,” he sighed. The hand that touched her remained aloft, big and black-gloved. His thumb traced a single, slow circle on his forefinger. “You really must pardon my intrusion. I hadn’t realized there was an… _event_.”

Delilah felt a bitter smile grow on her lips. “Even your intrusion is more welcome than the event itself.”

Dark, perhaps, but he nodded. “I imagine so. You were close with the deceased?”

She remembered auburn hair, trailing in wisps before her eyes. The bundle of slowly cooling objects she had inherited – a ring, a pocketwatch, a nightgown. “My mother,” she replied.

“Ah, I see,” he said. His voice had become distant, drifting words carried by the wind. She felt numb again, detached, and her eyes fell to the stones beneath them. Caught between her obligation to exile this man, her curiosity about their sudden connection, and her fear of the result of continued solitude, Delilah froze in place. As she pondered, a dark shape passed before her gaze. The stranger lowered his hand in a single, deliberate gesture, and said, “Lord Sylas Briarwood. May I have your name?”

She took his hand lightly in hers – such a weighty grip, with that thick, warm leather reinforcing it – and said, “Delilah.” The touch brought her back to wakefulness, and she allowed it to linger – she clung to him, or trapped him, or permitted him, or all three. Their breaths spiraled through the chilled air as pale clouds of fog.

“Very well,” he said at last, with a tentative smile. “Delilah. Might I arrange for a last-minute invitation? I could escort you back. You needn’t go alone.”

Delilah dug her feet into the ground, and pulled her hand from his. The thought of returning repulsed her – of introducing this man to the tedious, colourless ceremony. She had despised the funeral. The solemnity had been suffocating, and it seemed to have killed every one of the guests alongside her mother. They drifted like motes of dust, trading dead-eyed looks and meaningless greetings. She knew so little about Sylas Briarwood, but he was emphatically not a part of that. He was so utterly unrelated to her mother that he became an escape route, a rare chance to think about something, anything else. Delilah would use him as such, she decided, and she shook her head no. Lord Briarwood slowly let his gloved hand fall, looking bereft.

“I’m afraid that will not be possible,” Delilah informed him. “You are not on the list. I shall escort you to the edge of the property, instead.”

He stared at her for a moment longer, and then conceded, “Very well.”

She did not ask which way he wanted to go, or where he had come from. Instead, with the glowing stone raised in one hand and her skirts gathered in the other, she guided him towards the trees along the shore. She squabbled quietly with herself over her own carelessness - _they'll wonder where you've gone_ , said one voice, _but do you really care_ , said the other - but no argument was strong enough to deter her next step. Lord Briarwood walked at her side, making no effort to steer her. Instead, he followed her obediently into the woods. The thick-woven plants swallowed the subdued noises of the funeral, obscured the light – and soon, Sylas and Delilah had nothing but their footsteps and each other’s faces to fill the blackness and silence. Only once they were perfectly alone, isolated even from the distant reminders of the funeral, did either of them speak.

“Are you familiar with these woods, my Lady?” he asked first - more of a formality than a real question.

“No,” she confessed. “I’ve never been in them before.”

“Ah, pure luck, then.” At her questioning look, he explained, “This trail leads to the other end of the lake, which is where I live. You could follow me right to my doorstep, if you so wished.”

Delilah glanced at him. There was something of the wolf in his expression – sly eyes and a hungry smile. He might have been trying to cheer her up. “I am not following you anywhere,” she reminded him. “ _You_ are following _me_ , if you recall.”

His eyebrows rose, and then he laughed, a surging series of warm chuckles. The sound seemed to wrap around her, and dispelled the last of the chill that had been clinging to her skin. Equal parts impressed and amused, Sylas fell back a respectful-half step, giving her the lead.

She noticed, then, how close he had been walking at her side. Perhaps he meant to bring her comfort – or perhaps he wanted to stay within the aura of the stone. Even now, when she looked towards his face, there were twin pinpricks of gold in his black eyes. To test him, she raised her hand higher, and his gaze followed. Where his friendliness had not soothed her, his fascination brought her a little amusement. “Have you never seen magic before tonight, Sylas?” she asked.

“I have,” he answered, unruffled by her teasing tone. He walked with his large hands folded behind his broad back, eyes trained upwards at her hand held high, like a man contemplating the ceiling of a church. “It is a rarity, though. Most people in these lands are wary of witchcraft.”

“Witchcraft?” she replied, incredulous. He shrugged.

“It’s all ignorance and cowardice,” he reassured her. “Though I should warn you not to practice where the rabble can see you.”

Delilah clutched the stone tighter. She would have crushed it to liquid, had she the strength. “Well then,” she muttered. “Let them go blind.”

He laughed again, and she felt a warm doubt wrap around her heart, and weaken her. As he was a trespasser, a stranger and criminal, she had felt no obligation to be kind to him – and yet what that produced in her was not aggression, but sincerity. She freed the frustrations curling in her core, and he suffered them without complaint. She did not even mind the laughter. It was a pleasant sound on a dour evening. Moreover, she did not suspect him of any ill intent or malice - to her, for some inexplicable reason, Sylas was as legible and familiar as a diary she had written herself.

“You are intriguing,” he said, as if echoing her thoughts. “Newcomers are rare in Wildmount, and interesting individuals are scarce. You are both luxuries in one person.”

"Well, thank you," she replied, blushing - she had never been paid such compliments by a stranger before. It was oddly thrilling to be called a luxury. She traced a circle on the glowing stone with her thumb, and a corresponding shadow flashed across the trees. "I don't mean to throw you out so unceremoniously. Your timing was poor."

"On the contrary," he cut in, smiling down at her. Now that they were walking side-by-side on even ground, the height difference was obvious. Sylas was nearly a head taller than her, so she was eye-level with his breast pocket. "I believe it was perfect," he said warmly. "Now you have someone to talk to until you feel better."

“Are you offering me a shoulder to cry on?” she said, partly sarcastic, partly sincere. He wore a cloak with expensive-looking furred trim - at the very least, it would make a comfortable place to cry.

“I know something of grief, Delilah. I am offering you exactly that.” Smiling again, he asked, “So what ails you?”

A wall in her heart gave way – a barrier she had believed to be eternal. He asked questions, and she answered in an embarrassing rush, a flood of honest emotions, snapshot memories, and buried thoughts. The confessions became a purge, an act of expunging every last smidgen of scum and mold from her mind, and as she walked she grew lighter of step, and her clouded head began to clear. She voiced things she had never confessed, and things she had never realized took shape in her words as she spoke. Sylas would challenge her, and press her, but he never begged her silence – he let her speak. The moment she thought her answers were too sharp, too striking, he would laugh, and the sound carried her forward like a wave, pulling another round of intimate thoughts from her throat. She told him how her father had moved them into the grim old manor against her will, in some misguided attempt to honour his late wife; how Delilah gave in to his decision, too young to find a lodging of her own; how she took her frustrations out on flowers and butterflies, little pretty things that she could break with flickers of fire and ice; what thin strands of hope she could pull from the tangle of her life (dreams of quiet rooms to practice her magic, the possibility of joining her father on his trips to Emon or Syngorn, the thought of a daughter, one day.)

In the flurry of information, she had time to ask only one question of her companion. As they awkwardly circled the topic of her mother, she asked, “By the way, Sylas – if it’s not too personal, why do you say you know so much about grief?”

He sighed. “I have been handed my misfortunes, like anyone else. After a certain age, grief becomes the burden of anyone with a feeling heart.”

“You’re being evasive,” she responded. The past few minutes had intensified their familiarity, to the point where she felt comfortable criticizing him as such. “And you’re not that much older than me, are you?”

“I doubt I am, but I've lived long enough. And I am only being evasive to spare you more talk of tragedy,” he said gently, as if he were breaking particularly bad news. “I imagine you’ve had enough of that over the past few days.”

She felt liberated by the truth of his words. If someone gave her permission – an excuse – to discuss anything other than her grief, she would take it. “I think I rather have.”

“Then we’ll talk about something that brings you pleasure,” he replied, a smile of barely-restrained eagerness on his face. He gestured up at the light - she had swapped hands several times, as each began to tire in turn. Each time, Sylas had swept around to her other side, following the stone like a fascinated child. “Tell me more – how did you get the stone to do that?”

She provided him a short explanation of the gestures, the words, the way it felt to dip into the arcane energy of the world, but his awe did not seem to give over to understanding. Several slow nods and short, meaningless _hmmms_ later, a wicked streak awoke in her, and she waited until Sylas’ eyes left her face – surprisingly, it was a rare occurrence – and then drew a quick symbol in the air with her forefinger, drawing up an easy illusion-

The smoky shadow of a horned creature with glowing red eyes flashed past them on the path. Sylas immediately balked, yelped, and stepped in front of her. His arm collided with her chest crosswise, knocking the wind out of her – an attempt to hold her back, and protect her. The slight bruising did nothing to upset her amusement. Rather, his misguided heroism only made her prank all the sweeter, and she dissolved into giggles.

Sylas turned on his heel to admonish her, and his voice came out in a bewildered wheeze. “Oh, you minx, you-“ and he doubled over, coughing, resting his broad hands on his knees.

With a twinge of guilt, Delilah swallowed her laughter, and put her hands on his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Sylas, are you alright?”

A few more ugly, deep-in-the-chest coughs racked his form. Then he looked up at her, his smiling mouth open for gulps of air. “You’ve an enchanting laugh, Delilah,” he said, and paused, looking surprised at himself. Then, in one long, gushing sigh: “But please don’t do that again.”

Flattered, she helped him stand to his full height, and made a show of dusting off his shoulders. The gesture became an excuse to touch him longer. Each brief moment of contact helped decipher the strange connection between them, making its nature clearer and clearer. Though she could hardly believe it, Delilah had one suspicion in particular, hovering above the rest. _Is this really happening? Now, here, and with him?_

He offered her his arm for the next length of the walk, joking that “If your hands are here in mine, you won’t catch me off guard again.” Delilah took it, and it felt like the world was back in order. The compass in her mind stopped spinning. She tried to find words, something impressive, something that would get him to say _enchanting_ again.

All at once, the forest peeled open – they found themselves standing on a wide dirt road, exposed to the stars, and all the intimacy of their conversation was brutally stripped away. Sylas sensed the change, as she did, and sighed as if disappointed. In the distance, she could see a manor of red brick, ringed by a wrought iron fence. Four gold squares hung in the air – windows, lit by candles.

“Well,” he sighed. “This is where I leave you, Delilah. It’s been a pleasure.”

He leaned forward, into a slow, courteous bow, without tearing his eyes from her face. She said nothing. Somehow she didn’t believe he would really turn away, and when he did, the motion wrenched her heart up into her mouth, as if it were connected to him by thread.

“Wait,” she called, her voice shaking. Gods above, she didn’t even know what to expect – what she wanted him to do upon turning around – she just couldn’t bear to leave this moment unfinished.

He turned back, immediately, like he had anticipated her command. She dropped the stone before she could see his expression, and the light flickered out. In the brief, black seconds before her eyes adjusted, she reached out, wove her fingers into the wispy softness of his fur collar – a leather glove curled around her upper arm, rasping against the lace on her sleeve – and she kissed him.

It was a much longer kiss than it should have been – it should have been nothing at all – but instead it became a kiss that erased the world. Sylas pinned her to his chest with his other hand, and she felt the full pulse of his heart pounding against her, the warmth of contact from her hips to her neck. Everything beyond them – all the sounds and sensations and thoughts – collapsed. She felt the kiss with hyperreal clarity, drowned in the intensity of its every little detail – the creak of his leather gloves as he pulled her tighter, the slight, smiling scratch of his goatee. Delilah's heart throbbed like a wound, throbbed in joyful pain, knowing that this was madness and happiness intertwined, something she wanted and was crazy for wanting. When the pull, the intensity of their contact, became suffocating, she tore herself away, barely far enough to breathe. She heard him panting, a distinct rattle in his throat, a ruined quality to his voice when he spoke-

“Shall I forget that you did that?” he asked. Delilah was confounded.

“ _Could_ you forget it, even if I told you to?” she answered.

He pulled her in tight, shook his head no, and kissed her neck. The strength in him was overpowering, and she wilted like a flower, let him hold her. The weight of her earring – the one he had rescued – slowly lessened to nothing. He drew the ornament out, and Delilah felt the metal slip free of her flesh again, just as smoothly as before.

“Then I shall keep this,” he said.

She nodded. Before he could tuck it away in his breast pocket, she raised her fingers to his, and touched the surface of the earring. She whispered the words of the light spell, and the earring shone a gentle, muted gold.

“Be cautious on your walk, Lord Briarwood,” she added. “I expect to see you intact, next we meet.”

Smiling, he cradled the jewel in his hand. The light shone up at him from below, casting strange shadows on his forehead. He was delightfully handsome, she thought, dizzy and appreciative inside. In his purring baritone, he replied, “It will be an honour, Delilah.”

Neither of them moved, at first. Something too powerful had been set in motion, something as grand and unconquerable as the forces that fixed the planets in orbit.  

Later that night - who knew how much later, for who knew long she stood at the edge of those woods, watching Sylas retreat - she made it back to her side of the lake, and spent the rest of the night in cool silence. Her façade of misery and diplomacy soothed the guests and matched the miserable mood of the funeral. She fluttered in demure distress at her father’s worry – oh, she’d only been overcome by emotion, and gotten turned around in the dark. How grateful she was to be back, and how sorry she was to worry him! (And how easy it was to spin the lies that would satisfy him best). As she mixed the perfect draught for their consumption – dashes of earnest-sounding apology, a dizzy expression, trembling hints of fear in her voice – she could so vividly see Sylas laughing at her petty show, rolling his dark eyes at how easily they were convinced.

Everything she touched that night was as featureless as glass, cool and inert. Sylas still burned on her mouth, burned away everything that could affect her. She stripped her dress, and remembered where his leather gloves had strangled the fragile lace sleeves. She unlaced her corset and felt a warm handprint on her back. Her grief was not gone – she wept for her mother that night, as she had every night since her passing – but there was something so much more beautiful in her grasp at last, a seed of hope and a word, a promising word she was still too scared to speak.

Last of all, she removed her stray earring, stared at it for a long time, and then set it on her bedside table. The ornament caught no light, fallen on its side. She lay in her bed and watched the stars through it, as the crystal transformed the pinpricks of light into streaks of pale energy, strange and beautiful in their distortion.

 --

 _It is an odd way to start a fairytale, entwining death so deeply with love from the very second we met. I envision a critic, one who would read this and call our story too grim, perhaps. But I am establishing a theme: those two opposites wind together throughout our story, like a double helix. "Death and love? How miserable," they say, "how macabre." Idiots. They have not read our story closely enough. They do not know us._ _T_ _hey do not see you as I do, Delilah. No one ever did. You need not have wished blindness on the world, my love – there were so few who saw us clearly._

_Really, I think it is better that way. The image of you weeping by the lake – and your enchanted earring in my palm, still warm from sundering your flesh – those things are mine, Delilah. My fairytale. I never told a soul about them. I never will._

_I suppose I won’t have the chance._


	2. Mage Hand, Suggestion, Fire Bolt

_In many ways, that night was a dreadful mistake. I should have refused you - I should have cut things short. But, like an opiate, you had dulled my good sense along with my pain. You enchanted me with your gentle voice, and the spellbinding wit it imparted. My memories dissolved into the trees. I forgot myself, and it was bliss._ _I returned from the woods that night clutching your earring, elated, soaring, mad with joy and repeating your name like a song or a prayer, Delilah, Delilah - but it was an elation that could not survive the return of clear thought._

 _Once I stepped back into my home, I realized what I had done. I recognized the cruelty I had thoughtlessly inflicted on you. I paced in circles, tortured by guilt, until that enchanted light flickered out._ _The smallest sliver of hope, the thin thread from which I dangled, was the thought that perhaps you did not adore me as I already adored you. Perhaps you had been desperate, in your grief, for contact and comfort. Perhaps you would not seek me out again, embarrassed at your forwardness, ashamed of our kiss. I would fade into memory with your fallen mother. You would buy another pair of earrings. That would be that._

_Not so. When I saw you next, it was a split second after you had noticed me. I saw your shoulders rise and your chest swell with an inspired breath. I saw you blush – so much bright, lively blood in you! I saw you move like a shy, tiny bird, flitting through a crowd of flowers in pursuit of your Sylas. It was exactly the confrontation I had feared, but I could not tell if my heart beat harder for that, or for the flickering image of your smile._

_That is how I will always remember you, Delilah – a little honey-drunk hummingbird, all speed and colour, entirely innocent of how I planned to break your heart._

\--

Every night for the next week, Delilah went to the edge of the lake and waited. She amused herself by skipping glowing stones, counting how many times they sprang off the glassy surface before they broke through and the water snuffed out their magic light. When her fingers seized with the cold, and she became too stiff to throw accurately, she would return home. Each night she departed a little more heartbroken than the last. She began to think something was wrong – that she had somehow misread him – but she knew it could not be that.

She knew him too well. She knew the tone of his voice, the pace of his stride, the curve of his smile, the angles, measurements, ratios and rhythms that constituted Sylas Briarwood. She had calculated them all on their woodland walk. She had memorized his phrases, the words that had uncaged her heart or made her laugh or made her blush. As to the kiss, she gave it only glancing looks, trying to leave it blurry and indistinct. It was too much, too sweet and deep, a trap that would drown her thoughts forever if she let herself wallow in it. She preserved everything from that night, as if in amber, and she could look at each moment and know that Sylas had felt exactly as she had. He felt that same connection, that same trembling thread between their hearts. That thread tugged at her still, and every night she was tempted to step onto the lake as if she could simply walk across it, pulled to the glowing lights of his manor in the distance.

Delilah’s thoughts were less wild and desirous by day, mostly by necessity. Her father’s decision to move them from such a distance was both impulsive and poorly executed. They lacked a number of necessities, along with the luxuries they had become accustomed to in their old life. Every day of that suspenseful week, Delilah accompanied her father into the city, helping him organize his purchases, and slipping in what requests of her own she could. The poor old man had been put into a daze by the death of his wife; his movements and his mind were sluggish, and in that state, his sharp-minded Delilah proved indispensable. Together, they ordered food, furniture, linens, spring clothes. They put out postings for housemaids and a cook, wrote a novel’s worth of business letters, met with executors, constables, taxmen and bureaucrats. Delilah had a hand in it all, reading her father’s papers, checking his math, reminding him of everything they lacked, and by the week’s end, she felt as if she had seen every store and face in the entirety of the nation.

And somehow, Sylas had evaded her the whole time.

It was on that seventh day that fate finally showed her favour. Her father slipped into a chemist’s store, and Delilah, eager for a reprieve from their errands, asked to wait outside. A potential sanctuary, two doors further down the street, had captured her curiosity. Displays of spring flowers crowded the door in showers and bursts of pale colour, weighing the air down with their perfumes. Inside were rows of narrow shelves, stocked with glass vials and palm-sized drawstring bags made of canvas or burlap. She investigated, and found that the store also sold seeds, powders and extracts intended for use in alchemy and ritual. Delilah was delighted, and, recalling that one of the spells she’d been practicing required sweet oil, she purchased a handful of finger-sized vials before scurrying back to the street. Her father might raise an eyebrow – he’d always been skeptical of her magic – but she could excuse her purchase as the whims of a bored young girl, intoxicated by the flowers.

She concocted these excuses outside, while considering a bouquet of lilies on a stand just outside the door. After a few moments in thought, her mind suddenly went blank, as if she had divined what was about to occur. She strained to listen a split second before she heard the sound of his shoulder colliding with a passerby, and his splendidly rich voice, drifting along the heady air. “Beg your pardon-“

Ducking just behind the flowers, she caught sight of him leaving the chemist’s, in profile, gathering himself after the bump with a stranger. He adjusted his fur-lined cloak, patted his breast pocket as if to check if its secrets were intact, and then raked one hand through his hair to pull back a disheveled lock. Seeing his hands gloveless and bare was a thrill, like uncovering a little secret. He looked altogether different in the daylight – resembling a common human being, albeit a very well-dressed and handsome one, with a paler complexion than she remembered. He turned at a businesslike pace, caught sight of her face, and froze.

“Hello, Sylas,” she said, unable to restrain her glowing smile.

He swallowed. He gave a deep-chested cough, and pressed a balled fist to his heart as if to quell it. At last, he managed to muster a nod and her name, “Delilah.”

 And then – and then he marched right past her, eyes on the street, as if that would be that.

Delilah was too stunned to pursue him at first. She felt as if he had pulled her heart from her throat again. By the time she finally regained control of her feet, he had passed the store entirely. His strides were much longer than hers, and she half-ran to catch him, nearly colliding with another pedestrian. Gods, was everyone in the city out today? As she reached his shoulder, she saw him shut his eyes briefly, and flinch as if he’d been slapped. “In a rush?” she asked brightly. “I could accompany you-“

“No,” he cut her off, and redoubled his pace.

Now he was just being rude. Delilah sprinted ahead and cut him off, standing square in his path. The city-dwellers continued to bustle along beside them, trapping Sylas between their ignorant rush and her blockade. Sylas halted, and then heaved a growling sigh and rolled his eyes. She let her smile slip away, so her displeasure could shine through. “I beg your pardon," she said, her shock hot in her cheeks, "but have I done something wrong?”

He stepped closer, a fury in his eyes that brushed far too close to panic. In a harsh, hissing whisper, he said, “I have no interest in speaking to you, and I would rather forget that I met you in the first place. Understood?”

Perhaps her heart would have broken, had Sylas not been such a poor liar. His words carried the stiff quality of practiced lines. He could not fix his eyes on hers in hatred: he could barely look at her at all. He hesitated, as if he wanted to say something else, before turning away. She was almost embarrassed for him, for his clumsy transparency. Her patience entirely lost, Delilah snapped her fingers and spat an arcane word in his direction. An elegant purplish hand swirled into being in front of Sylas’ face, slipped into his jacket pocket, and snatched away its contents. She saw the swish of heads turning, of the surrounding rabble enraptured by their spectacle. Sylas swatted at the assaulting hand, but not in time. It held a single crystal earring aloft at the height of his nose.

“You’ll have to lie better, Sylas,” she said, her voice deadly.

He made a grab for the earring, and Delilah permitted it, satisfied that she had made her point. The hand vanished into the air. Sylas turned and swept towards her, that same conflicted fury still contorting his expression. She felt eyes locking on them both, from all directions, and the slow stilling of the motion of the crowd. He slammed one of his broad hands on her shoulders, just restrained enough to avoid hurting her, and steered her back down the street, away from any witnesses. She felt as if she were being arrested, but her capture only triggered rebellion in her heart. He dragged her into the mucky alleyway by the flower-seller, and pinned her to the brick wall with one broad hand. She stared at him, her jaw set.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, a protest and a plea in one. “I owe you nothing.”

She folded her arms, and narrowed her eyes. “Either you owe me that earring, or an explanation as to why you’re keeping it.”

Sylas held her gaze for a long time, calculating. Then, at last, he released her, and gave a sigh that seemed to deflate him, caving his shoulders and dispelling all his aggressive tension. “I apologize. You’re the last person I should be taking this out on.”

His anger calmed, Sylas looked away from her, and paced out a loose circle in the mud. He pressed one broad hand to his forehead, and then jerked to a stop with another short cough. This circus of behaviour was not what she had expected at all. Blushing and shyness, maybe – or a flirtatious duel, their wits and wants matched point for point. Instead, Sylas had turned them into a cheap scandal. Even now, he peeked out into the bustling street to make sure no one as watching them, and he seemed hesitant to say anything else.

So Delilah prompted him, her hands folded demurely on her skirts. “What ails you, Sylas?”

He laughed, bitter and sharp like a bark, and made another fretful loop of the alleyway. Without meeting her eyes, he mumbled, “I wish I didn’t have to tell you.”

“You’re not married, are you?” she guessed.

“No,” he answered, nearly cutting her off. “No, that would be simpler to explain. But I cannot see you again. I cannot.”

The fabric between her fingers creaked as she gripped it tight. This time, he spoke with sincerity, but that did not bring her any pleasure. “At all?” she pleaded. “Not even for – friendly conversation? Interesting company?”

At last, he met her eyes - with a dark look, a hungry look. “It would not end there, and you know it.”

His gaze was so intense, so unflinching, that it was almost like being touched. She swore she could feel it, as heat and pressure on her chest, crushing the air out of her. Breathless, Delilah stepped away from the wall, and brought herself close enough for true contact. Let him try and hold his composure - let him try and keep those naked hands to himself. She saw his fingers twitch as she cornered him, saw him swallow a strained breath of his own. “Would that be so awful?” she said.

Sylas took two steps forwards, and she stepped back, following like a dance, until her spine scraped the bricks again. He caught her around the side of the neck, his thumb on the hollow of her throat. Like a mummer’s puppet, she was pulled into shape, gently controlled, her spine straightening and fingers stretching, reaching. He was close enough that the landscape vanished into his eyes. All she saw were dark lashes, dark pupils, the flash of each slight motion with which he searched her face.

He pressed his forehead to hers, and gave an angry breath. She felt that same perfect alignment, that sense that everything was in its place, as she had when they had kissed. She could not imagine what obstruction kept them apart – and it was hardly doing so, at the moment. Sylas’s frustrated whisper seemed to stroke her skin. “I’m sure it would be bliss,” he said. His voice took on a tone of confession, and of incredulity. For the first time, she thought he sounded very young. “I must be mad. Even now I look at you and…I want to call it fate – but it couldn’t be.”

“If it is fate,” she answered, “you know your protests will amount to nothing in the end.”

He laughed, and she was close enough to him to feel it rumbling in his body, shaking in his hands. “You’ve the gift of a silver tongue, Delilah. I’m sure you’d convince me if I gave you the chance. But I won’t.”

The weight on her throat vanished. Sylas rose back to his full height, and dipped away to subdue a short coughing fit behind his hand. The noise cut clean through the tension of the previous moment, and the atmosphere cooled between them. Each cough made her feel queasy to listen to – thick, wet noises, slimy and unpleasant. She sidled along the brick, towards the street, to give him some privacy. While there were still unanswered questions, however, she could not let herself be deterred. Once he fell silent, she said, “I still need your reasons, Sylas.”

“I know,” he said, his voice strained from the stress of his fit. He shut his eyes, and she felt him concede. “Come by the manor this evening," he said. "We can speak at length there. This is not the place.”

Delilah looked down at the mud under their shoes, and nodded. As long as there was an open invitation to see him, she had not lost. And whatever problem prohibited him from even speaking with her on the street was not a problem she could abandon. She could not conceive of the crisis he had suffered, but she was compelled to ease his pain and distress.

When she looked up again, Sylas held out a prohibitive hand, and said “Wait here, please.” She stood, rocking back and forth on her heels, listening to the chatter and clatter of the crowds passing beyond her. After a few agonizing minutes, he returned. He held one of the bouquets from the shop around the corner: a thick cloud of white lilies, petals open like inviting hands.

“An apology for you,” he said. “And the only chance I’ll have to be the gentleman you deserve.”

He passed them into her arms. The flowers had looked large even in comparison to him. In terms of size, it felt like she was carrying a small child. Sylas leaned over the bundle, rested a hand on her shoulder, and kissed her swiftly on the forehead. The kiss burned. She squeezed the flowers, and heard their springy stems creak. With a pained smile, Sylas retreated, turned right, and vanished down the street with a swish of his coat.

Delilah looked down at the lilies. They were cream-white and smooth and robust. The petals could have been mistaken for ceramic, such was their flawlessness. Each flower had a few fuzzy yellow tongues protruding from it, and slender green leaves that peaked upwards like arms raised in exuberant salutation. They were the happiest damned flowers she’d ever seen. She had _never_ despised anyone in her life as much as she despised Sylas in that moment.

Of course, the culprit had already made his escape, so Delilah marched, dejected, back into the street. The sounds and colours of the shopping district, previously so vibrant and vivacious, had gone dull to her senses. Delilah stood immobile, directionless again, for a few seconds. Then a voice – not Sylas's – called her name. She looked around, bewildered, just in time to catch sight of her father squeezing between the shoulders of a portly husband-and-wife pair. They made offended blustering noises, but her father’s visible anger prevented any real protest. With a sharp, scolding sigh, he cornered Delilah and her flowers at the mouth of the alleyway. “Where have you been?” he asked. “And who gave you those?”

“Lord Briarwood,” she said. A lie spun from her lips, perfectly crafted, easy as a familiar song. “He realized I was new in town and bought me a welcome present. Perhaps I could visit him tonight to thank him?”

Her father raised his eyebrows, like the request was absurd. “After you vanished so irresponsibly? We have things to take care of at home. Come, now-“

His voice was brusque and dismissive. That would be the end of that. Delilah should have been angry, but the first flare of emotion in her chest was not rage - it was pity. Had her father tried to prevent anything but this particular goal, she would have conceded. He was in mourning, and under considerable stress, and in every other circumstance, she wanted to ease those difficulties. Unfortunately, when it came to Sylas, her father lost his authority, and all the persuasive power of his grief. She simply could not leave things between her and Sylas unresolved. It was not up for negotiation.

Cradling the bouquet in one arm, she slipped her free hand into her pocket, and retrieved one of the vials of oil. As she fell into step with her father, she pushed the stopper out with her thumb, and let some of the liquid drip over her skin. The smell of narcissus flowers wove through the heady perfumes of the lilies, and in the aura of that enchanting cloud she said, “Father, don’t you think I should ingratiate myself with the nobility? Go home to bed, and don’t worry about me.”

She had never cast a spell like this one before. It felt different than the usual snaps of electric power, bursting through her fingers – instead, there was a dreamlike ease to it, more like swirling a hand through thick smoke. Her father blinked, shook his greying head, and said “A fair point, darling. Make sure you get home safely.”

He patted her on the cheek, and waved goodbye to her. His eyes were glazed, unfocused, as if he'd been drinking heavily. Delilah watched, slightly thrilled by her own daring, as her father changed his course to their home. He sauntered along with cheerful ease, at a pleasantly brisk pace. As he disappeared, she shrugged – if the spell had the added benefit of making her father happier, perhaps she should have tried enchanting him sooner.

She was fairly certain Sylas’s manor lay along the same route as her own, in the direction of the lake. Delilah walked slowly, mapping a meandering path through the city streets, giving Sylas the time he needed and her father a considerable head start. She passed men hauling bolts of expensive cloth, entitled noblewomen harassing messengers, a cordon of black-cloaked clerics from the temple of the Raven Queen, a guard’s post with a square-jawed woman in leathers half-asleep on duty. The labour and life of the city continued, but dwindled as she walked. The sun had dipped low behind the trees, and the long shadows and chilling air lured the citizens with the promise of sleep – soon, soon. Eventually, the buildings grew further apart, and then vanished altogether, stopped short by the looming threat of the lakeside trees.

By the time Delilah saw the distant red brick peeking through the green boughs, the sky had faded to yellow. On a gamble, she followed the first road pointed in the manor's direction, hoping her instincts would guide her true. She crossed a bridge over a ditch, where the dark earth was just beginning to crack with wildflower shoots. The road beyond was packed earth, rounding a smooth curve on a gentle incline. The peaceful walk soothed the fire in her heart. Her frustration with Sylas faded to simple concern – a dull, ominous sense that something he had to say would change her irreparably, all over again, for the second time in seven days.

He did not even get to tell her himself. At the far end of the curving road, a set of heavy black gates game into view. The manor itself appeared to be further up the road, still half-hidden between the branches of the trees. The area felt deserted - no sign of Sylas or anyone else. Delilah approached the iron gates, and found them closed. Though they did not seem to be locked, she suddenly felt unwelcome. Perhaps she was early – and was she certain it was the right place? She had only seen it up close in the dark, and even then, it had been from the other side, by the lake. She searched around for some indication, and found a sign embedded in the brick wall.

In solemn brass letters it said BRIARWOOD HOSPICE.

Delilah stared. She hefted the lilies higher in her arms. Shock prevented her comprehension. She took a half-step towards the gate, but found she could not tear her eyes from the sign. Then two steps back, and then she stood as if petrified, tracing each golden curve of each letter, gathering nothing.

A slow, metallic creak broke her reverie. Sylas leaned on the gate, watching her wordlessly. She jumped in her shoes, startled. His sudden appearance drove her to mindless stammering, only to delay the horrible moment in which she would have to understand everything.

“So you own a hospice,” she said, her voice thin, quaking with groundless denial. “I can see how that would – occupy your attention. You must be very busy, but I can compromise – maybe I can help you, even, if you have any use for magic here.”

Sylas looked at her with incredible pity, and waited. He would not grace this pointless pretense with a response. She knew, and he knew.

She could barely say the words. They felt unreal, impossible. Slowly, she approached the gate where Sylas stood, solid and real and human, tall enough that she had to crick her neck to see his eyes, twice as broad as her at the shoulders, a bull of a man, a breathing beast, and yet –

“You’re dying.”

 He nodded, and shut his eyes.

Delilah was too startled to cry. Although she felt tears come to her eyes, they did not fall. She clung to her bouquet of lilies with both arms, strong enough to strangle them. In a dull, distant voice, he reported. “I am both proprietor and patient. I opened my home to others like me a few years ago, when I found out. I sought understanding, and company. It never lasts long, as you can imagine.”

“Sylas—“ she said, but there were no further words to be found.

“I wanted to spare you the knowledge,” he continued, and at last, a fond smile blossomed across his face. “But you’re nothing if not determined, my dear.”

She needed to do something - with her hands, her voice, her mind. She needed to decipher this, to fix it. Trembling, fidgeting, she asked, “How – how much time do we have?”

He laughed – oh, and she could hear that ragged rattle in it now, that mark of whatever corruption was killing him. “ _You_ have all the time in the world,” he reminded her. “If I am lucky – if everything goes perfectly well, I may have a decade.”

Delilah smiled, weakly. “That’s not nothing.”

As she spoke, she realized how trite she must have sounded. Sylas had doubtlessly heard every kind of empty comfort. This particular one made him wince, and he shot her another pitying look. His voice, when he spoke again, halted at every few words. “It is not a decade of a perfectly normal life with a sudden stop at the end. I shall spend it rotting from the inside. Even now, there are days when I –" he fell silent, shook his head, and took a step back from the gate. "I said I would spare you, never you mind. You do not deserve this so soon after watching your mother die.”

With those words, at the most disrespectful moment, she felt a swoop of hysterical joy in her heart. He _did_ care for her. That was the very reason he had refused. She caught a bar of the gate with her free hand, and with a burst of passion declared, “I would take that decade.”

“I know you would," he said, his voice soft. "You were not born for death, as I was. In those woods, in your presence, I forgot everything – the weariness, the pain. But coming back into the light, remembering what I was - I don’t know if I could-”

He fell silent again, his words fading into breath. Delilah watched his grave expression, his hand clutching the iron crossbar, his broad shoulders lowered as if bearing a weight-

-and her despair evaporated. She would never again be surprised at how quickly, how powerfully, how madly she had come to love him. In a way, it was out of her hands. It had been fate all along. Delilah shut her eyes. Her tears receded, and she managed a sincere, confident smile. She wound her fingers through his around the iron, and found them strong and warm. He looked up, and she pressed as close as she could to the bars. “Sylas, it’s alright.” She said. “I’ll think of something.”

She squeezed his hand. He looked at her, lips halfway parted as if he were about to respond, eyes flickering, searching her expression. Delilah only smiled, and let their fingers drift apart. She took a few steps backwards, and he remained silent, watching her go from behind the gate.

After a half-dozen paces, she turned, and set her eyes on the muddy track back to the city, her mind in a frenzy of creation. Just that day, she had re-written her father’s mind. She had cut through Sylas’s protests and straight to his heart with an effortless trick. Those moments had taken her mere seconds to execute, in tiny bursts of inspiration that cost almost nothing at all.

Imagine, then, what she could do with ten _years_!

The wind carried her forward, stirring her skirts. She felt the potential curled up in every particle of existence, the forces and energies at her beck and call. She had intelligence, resources and dedication. Most importantly, she had a purpose, and it was diamond-clear and just as unbreakable. She tossed the lilies into the air, as high as she could throw them, and extended her hand. The petals burst into flame, and burnt to ash as they fell around her. She strode on, leaving the bouquet in smouldering pieces.

To hell with his farewells – Sylas didn’t realize how lucky he was to be in love with a witch.


	3. Zone of Truth, Sending

_You must know how I adore your melodramatic streak, my dear.  I believe I laughed when you set my flowers on fire, though you were much too far away to hear me._

_Even as I watched those ashes fall, I knew it was not the end. Wildmount was not so big that you would get lost in its crowds for eternity. I would see you on the street, or your dear heart would give in, and you would return to the Hospice and hammer at the gates. With nothing else to occupy me, I  thus entertained fantasies of your equally audacious return._

_And I would never have admitted this before, but I held your earring cupped in my palm each night and hoped that it would glow._

_Unfortunately, I believe you took my rejection to heart. There was no romantic reunion, not at first - but Delilah, you were undeniable. Even if I did not seek you out, and even if you avoided me, the universe was built to bring us together, and would unmake itself again to see that fate delivered. After a month of numb self-assurance that I had made the right decision, that despicable hag of a paladin invaded my sanctuary. They flung horrific words around – “abomination”, “necromancer.” I defended you, trying desperately to rein in my wild temper, with every weapon I had - status, treachery, and invention._

_Despite the vile accusations, such chivalry in your name was a pleasure. So, presented as I was with the perfect excuse, I raced to your garden, prepared to take on that heroic role again. There you stood, consumed with thought, or perhaps waiting for me. You addressed me with serenity, untouched by the slander I had found so repulsive. I should have known not even Gods could scare you, not when you had ideas in your head._

_That is how I will always remember you, Delilah – noble as a statue, ageless in your knowledge and composure, the last barricade between me and the void._

_\--_

Delilah trembled when she returned from the Hospice, and her smile was broad and wild. The energy of such inspiration, so overwhelming and electric, took weeks to fade from her system. Never before had she been so compelled by such a complex project. There were a thousand questions to answer, and she barely knew where to start. With plans firing off in her head, sudden and violent as geysers, she took to obsessive study, and remained in that state for several weeks.

Her bedroom became the nexus of the chaos. She spent hours inside, drafting plans and crafting schemes. An ever-growing collection of spell components, scrawled notes, and borrowed books crowded her desk. At first, she cobbled together some hopeful, far-flung aspirations: she would discern the nature of her nemesis, and discover a spell to conquer it. That meant gaining access to magic that did not exist in her corner of Wildmount, and so she would have to go to Emon, one day. By extension, she would need the money and means to travel there, and enough distance from her father that he would either permit her departure or be unable to stop it. Yet she could not approach any of these tasks without a considerable wealth of experience and knowledge. She put aside the driving goal of curing Sylas, and the distant dreams surrounding it, to concentrate on the fundamentals.  

For even those immediate concerns, her father had become something of an obstacle. Delilah made frequent ventures into town to shop – to barter for the few arcane texts that passed by in the hands of traveling merchants, or to replenish the components required for her spells – and whenever she went, she restocked her vials of sweet oil. He was often too busy to interfere with her work directly, but he was not completely oblivious to her tormented state. During the day, she would vanish, and she sat through dinner practically thrumming with impatience, like a stallion at a starting gate, waiting for the moment when the conventions of politeness liberated her. On the rare, miserable day when her father deigned to interfere – tried to prevent her from going into town, say – Delilah would cast her gentle enchantment and guide him back to quiet, benign acceptance.

(She wondered, on occasion, if her father was really himself any more, after all her subtle manipulation. But then again, did a man so weak-willed truly have a character to begin with?)

Besides that particular suggestion charm, Delilah rarely cast her magic in the house. Instead, she found herself drawn to the lakeside forest, after the sun had set. The tight-woven lace of trees and brambles felt safer than any battlements. She liked the darkness, and the moments when the wind blew moonlight onto her path. With a thousand leaves and stones and little creatures to practice on, and the soft incense of pine hanging from the boughs, the woods were a haven of serene study. She practiced on the near-abandoned path between her home and Sylas's, and became familiar with it, so the space transformed into something private – intimate, almost, like it belonged to her.

Unfortunately, the route was not as private or perfect as she had initially believed. The Briarwood Hospice crowned a slight hill on the West shore, and hers sat cradled on the East. Southwards lay the town, and their path wound North, and further North was wilderness, miles and miles of damp, impenetrable wilderness, freshly revitalized by the coming of spring. Delilah knew the woods were distant enough from town that they should have been deserted, but they were not. On certain nights, she found places where human footprints pocked the loamy dirt, and winking lights sometimes flashed in the trees, always in the changeable yellow-orange colour of lantern flames.

Delilah was curious, but the clues were not remarkable on their own. They could have been guards on some far-flung patrol, or gravediggers from the Hospice clearing space for its deceased, or the Raven Queen’s paladins out for a midnight stroll. Regardless, she did not want to be interrupted. On the nights when Delilah saw lights in the trees, she practiced casting with stealth; speaking the words under her breath, minimizing the motions of her hands.

Her progress was swift and steady, by her own assessment. Spells that had taken her monumental effort grew easier; enchantments that had seemed impossible became plausible, then simple. She was productive, but unbearably lonely. She had no teacher to reassure her, no classmates to compete with, and no one to encourage her. All she had was the fantasy of a lover, a man she had met all of twice, and who had already refused her. Whenever she reached the brink of failure, she walked all the way along her path to the Briarwood Hospice.

She never approached the gates, or came within the aura of light from the windows. If Sylas saw her, it could cause a misunderstanding, and tormenting him was the furthest thing from her mind. All she needed were supplementary bursts of inspiration, and so she hovered by the treeline, counting the illuminated windows. Otherwise, Sylas remained a creature of her imagination. She did not ask about him, though the temptation was overwhelming, and more than once she heard his name passed around in gossip. She had planned to avoid him in town, as well, but in those first three weeks she saw him only once. He exited the chemist’s shop as she rounded the corner of the street, and the sudden appearance struck her and left an ache behind, as if she had been stabbed in the stomach. As she bled, she took in every detail she could see – a slight frown of concentration on his face, a healthier blush in his cheeks, a new cloak and a handsome jade-green jacket bright like spring – and he looked up. Their eyes met across the mad, sweeping chaos of the city street. He did not seem surprised to see her, and he smiled – gentle, appreciative, asking for nothing. Delilah nodded at him, and raised the books she was carrying (a pair of treatises on elven healing magic): _look, you see, I’m working on it._  It was an awkward, clumsy gesture, complete with an apologetic smile, but she could see the laugh bubbling up through his shoulders. Then he jerked his head, _run along_ , and she turned back around the corner, perfectly obedient. The split-second encounter restored her completely. In her loneliness and exhaustion, her determination had been wavering: it would not do so again.

Seeing Sylas on that particular day was a stroke of incredible luck, as later that same week, she found her conviction assaulted again – but this time, from the outside. Three days later, the sun rose on a perfectly clear day. With no clouds to clothe the sky, and the sun a distant crystal, the air was piercing and cold. Delilah had acquired so many books that spending the day inside in study, would not be a terrible waste. She filled several pages of notes, and was midway through another when a knock at the door interrupted her focus. She blew the ink dry on the paper, then called, “Yes, father, what is it?”

He opened the door, and leaned against the frame. A quizzical look consumed his face, but he seemed to have trouble meeting her eyes. “There’s someone here to speak with you,” he said, his words halting with hesitation.

Delilah had made a handful of acquaintances since arriving in Wildmount, but one possibility – of course – immediately pushed to the front of the queue. Her heart skipped upwards with the lightness of hope, and she replied, “Who? Who is it, where are they?”

“Outside, in the garden,” he answered. He did not seem amused by her eagerness – rather, he looked almost afraid. “And I don’t know them. Someone from the Temple of the Raven Queen.”

Delilah found herself mirroring her father’s expression. She was too confused to be disappointed. “I don’t think I’ve even been inside the place.”

“I thought not,” he concurred. “Neither have I. You’d best go see what they want.”

Frowning, Delilah straightened her notes. An inexplicable wariness filled her heart. As her father turned, and left the doorway, she made a swift detour to her night-table. From it, she took the crystal teardrop earring, and stowed it in the pocket of her dress. Magic had enlightened her to the significance of such trinkets: though she knew of no charm to give herself a shot of bravery, perhaps the little stone had that potential trapped inside it. She kept her hand in her pocket, clenched around the jewel, as she ventured into the garden.

Naming it a garden was actually rather misleading. Twenty years of neglect had transformed the flowerbeds into snarls of thorns and weeds, and the clusters of maples into overgrown webs of drooping branches. Ambitious spears of crabgrass had shattered and overtaken the cobblestone walkways, and the trellises were bare of the usual fragile flowers, supporting strangling vines and slimy moss instead. The branches and berries dripped with overnight rain. The area was barely tamer than the surrounding woods, and thus felt more like their extension, beginning at the lake and crawling all the way to the kitchen door. Delilah arrived at that threshold, and stopped just short of traversing it. The trees and shrubs blocked her view of the water, and cordoned off all but the thinnest of winding paths to the shore. In that natural corral, leaning against a trellis, Delilah met her first true enemy.

The paladin was vaguely familiar, but their face did not summon any name to mind. Perhaps she had seen them in passing in Wildmount, as paladins were wont to parade and patrol through the streets. Standing with impeccable posture, they offered Delilah a square-shouldered bow of greeting. They were clad in glinting plate mail, and a black cloak trailed their shoulders like a second shadow. The interloper looked like a grayscale sketch: thinly wrinkled ivory features, with bloodless lips and premature white hair. The only shot of colour to be found was in their eyes, which were blue as thunderclouds.

Delilah approached - and something strange happened the moment her foot touched the soil. She felt a push at the back of her mind, like a quiet but insistent knock. It shocked her, and she thrust her will against it. With that single, defiant push, the assault melted away into nothingness. The entire exchange took barely a second, but the significance of it did not escape her: the paladin had tried to curse her somehow. She looked up, trying to remain calm.

“You must be Delilah,” the paladin said, in a high voice. They spoke with near-inhuman clarity, precise and crisp with every consonant. “I’ve been looking for you."

“I can’t imagine why,” Delilah responded, with absolute sincerity. She had made no effort to ingratiate herself with those of the faith. Sylas's warnings had convinced her to avoid them, and in her limited experience, even the most generous were suspicious of the arcane. Still, there was no need to burn bridges. She folded her hands demurely behind her back, and asked, “What do I call you?”

“Sir Jules, if you please,” the paladin responded, resting a hand on the pommel of a shining broadsword. A casual reminder of their authority, perhaps. Independent of the Wildmount guard, paladins and clerics were given special rights of detention and punishment: with proper cause, Sir Jules could cut her down and suffer no repercussions. The paladin continued, “I am here at the behest of the Raven Queen. I believe you can answer some questions for me.”

Her smile unflinching, Delilah resisted rolling her eyes. _At the behest of the Raven Queen_. Alongside the " _Sir_ Jules, please," it was difficult to conceive of a more pretentious introduction. “Of course,” she said. “Would you like to come inside?”

Sir Jules arched a colourless eyebrow and offered no equivalent courtesy. Icily, they said, “You arrived in Wildmount with your father approximately a month ago, correct?”

"Yes," she confirmed.

“In order to assist Lord Briarwood with arcane treatment for his illness?”

Delilah blinked. “Pardon?”

A pause, long enough to be threatening. “Is that not your arrangement?” Ser Jules asked, their stern voice growing even colder. “When I spoke with him this morning, he claimed he was your patron.”

It was such a bizarre departure from the truth that Delilah’s mind shot forwards in a dozen directions, assembling the pieces with split-second speed. This paladin had already spoken with Sylas, and Sylas had deemed it fit to lie about the nature of their meeting. She could not guess why, not in the fraction of a moment she had to respond, but she trusted his judgment, and followed his lead.

Delilah smiled with the motherly concern of a tender-hearted nurse. The inventions came to her lips easily, as if Sylas guided her words. “Oh, yes,” she replied. “I am only surprised he told you. He asked me not to speak of our arrangement. I imagine he didn’t want to mislead anyone into thinking his condition was worsening.”

“Yes,” Sir Jules said thoughtfully – fooled, for the moment. “Lord Briarwood is a good man.”

Her smile grew easy. Genuine. To her interrogator, she only said, “I agree.”

“Not a foolish man, either,” Sir Jules continued, arms crossed. The metal gauntlets screeched unpleasantly, and Delilah recoiled, as the paladin took a heavy step closer. “I only wonder why he placed his trust in a child, rather than an arcanist of repute.”

Delilah’s smile vanished. How rude. Tersely, she fired back, “A question only he could answer, I believe.”

Sir Jules stared at her for a long time, unflinching, silent. Obviously, there was an accusation that remained unsaid, simmering under their conversation. Sylas would not have needed to defend her otherwise. Impatient, and unwilling to let herself fall into an interrogator’s trap, Delilah continued, “now, if you have any questions _I_ can answer, I would ask that you share them.”

“Very well,” Sir Jules sighed. “The Temple of the Raven Queen was assaulted by undead last night.”

At that, Delilah was sincerely surprised, and she did not bother to hide her shock. Undead were a horrific rarity - she had never met someone who had seen one in person before. But Sir Jules had no pity for her confusion. They continued, their stormcloud eyes piercing through hers. “It was a petty attempt, and easily foiled. And when it was foiled, we noticed that one of the risen abominations bore a resemblance to a previous patient at the Briarwood Hospice.”

Delilah stayed silent, waiting. The connection - the accusation - was becoming clearer and clearer, and she felt bitter even before it was spoken aloud. Sir Jules continued, “You have been seen outside the Hospice on multiple occasions, including late at night. What business did you have there?”

Had she been seen? Delilah could not remember ever crossing paths with anyone on her walk to the manor. “Lord Briarwood’s treatment,” she lied. “Or did he not tell you that as well?”

The paladin heaved a tense breath, and admitted, hesitantly, “He did.”

She felt the pace of her heart slow, even as Sir Jules changed tactics. They paced away from the trellises, carving a wide arc around her, like a circling wolf. Delilah was more bored by the showmanship than effectively intimidated. Sylas was protecting her; she felt invulnerable. From her side, the paladin asked, “Are you familiar with the laws of the Raven Queen regarding the practice of magic?”

“Yes,” Delilah lied. She could only imagine it was something to do with the undead. Magic as a whole did not seem to be illegal, only disdained.

“Have you conducted any rituals that violate those tenets?”

“Of course not!”

“You have never been involved with necromancy or necromancers?”

Delilah could not restrain a shrill, sudden laugh, and she spun on her heel. “You dare to presume that _I_ would attack your temple?”

“I am simply treating the issue with the thoroughness it deserves," the paladin replied. They had ceased pacing, and stood with the firmness of stone, under the spotted shadow of a maple tree. Coolly, they reported, "Necromancy is punishable by death in Wildmount.”

Gods above, this was turning into a farce. Still giggling, still incredulous, Delilah replied, “you don’t see a bit of irony in that? Punishing necromancy by death?”

Sir Jules growled, “No.”

With an impatient sigh, Delilah cut off her own laughter. The paladin pointed out, “You seem awfully amused. Perhaps you do not realize the potential seriousness of these accusations.”

“Are you accusing me?” Delilah responded, “or are you theorizing? I’ve done nothing wrong, and you have no evidence to the contrary. One would think you wandered into this garden and accused the first magic-user you saw.”

From the way Sir Jules flinched, Delilah realized her joke hadn’t been too far from the truth. The paladins were desperate, then. Perhaps the assault had not been foiled so easily after all. Perhaps something more dramatic had occurred, something Sir Jules would not share with suspects. She smirked - how embarrassing for them. She despised Sir Jules already, and imagining that they were incompetent only gave her pleasure. They approached her and leaned forwards, voice lowered to a threatening snarl. “Let us be frank with each other. Either you are involved, or you are not. If you are, I will find proof, and I will stop you. But if you are not, you had best reflect on your ignorance. You do not realize how insidious such dark forces can be.”

Sir Jules held Delilah’s gaze for a few seconds longer. She remained immobile and stoic, determined not to show any reaction. At that point in the argument, it didn’t matter to her whether Sir Jules was right. They had insulted her twice, and Sylas by implication. Expelling such impudence from her home stood as her first priority. With a last scrutinizing look, Sir Jules turned, and made their way to the edge of the garden. They disappeared, the clang and screech of their armor stripping the peace from the afternoon for several obnoxious seconds before the sounds faded and vanished.

Delilah strode across the garden and leaned against the lattice where Sir Jules had been standing, shutting her eyes to think. Despite the fact that the paladin’s accusations were groundless, the visit still worried her. Sylas had been right to warn her about the close-minded populace – a few witness accounts of her petty magical tricks, and suddenly she was the first person in mind when something went wrong!

And yet, she couldn’t help but find her curiosity piqued. She hadn’t attacked the Temple of the Raven Queen, but someone had – and that person obviously had knowledge of magic that she wouldn’t find in the hands of traveling merchants or sanctioned books. What she had read of higher-level magical theory had so far been disheartening. The elven healing texts had nearly broken her heart. Wounds and infections could be cured with magic, but she could not alter something so inherent to his person. She would have to restructure him nearly from scratch. Simply put, Sylas's body was built to last a meager thirty years, and every healing spell was at best a temporary stay of execution.

Sylas had said it himself: he was born for death. She needed to study her enemy more closely.

But that brought another thought to mind, in the shape of the story Sylas had crafted to be her alibi. Sir Jules had spoken with him first, and Sylas had seen fit to defend her. On the one hand, it was strange. Sylas had no way of knowing whether she had assaulted the temple or not. They hadn’t had a single conversation since he rejected her at the Hospice gates, and he had still risked a lie to protect her.

She pushed her lingering discomfort aside. In the end, the confrontation had been positive. Now she had an entirely new avenue of magic to explore, and a perfect excuse to speak with Sylas again.

Delilah plucked at one of the joints of the lattice. It was woven through with old wires, once used to collar whatever flowers grew through its supports. She recalled a spell, one she had been keen to practice. With her finger hooked through a copper loop, she summoned Sylas’s image to mind (grinning, glowing, the earring in his hand) and composed a message.

                _Sir Jules came to ask about the temple. Thank you for the alibi. Hope you are well._

The words rang through her mind, muting the natural white noise of the outdoors. She felt them shoot in an unknowable direction, almost exactly like launching an arrow from a bow, and they struck a target. Delilah spent a few seconds in patient silence, and then Sylas’s voice echoed through her head, pure and clear.

                _I’m almost there. Don’t move._

In her hand, the copper coil flashed with an eerie blue-green light, and disintegrated to dust. The wind whisked the powder out of her hand, and Delilah stood completely still. Somehow she believed Sylas would find her exactly where she was. _Don’t move._

She listened to the hiss of the wind stirring the leaves overhead, and watched the mesmerizing loops in which the branches danced. The gusts followed a crescendo, then quieted, then grew louder again. At some indeterminate point in the pattern she heard, unmistakably, the sound of footsteps and strained breathing. Delilah finally let her perfect posture crumble, and she pressed her head against the lattice, smiling in gratitude, and winding her fingers into its gaps. She collected herself, and turned to the path. Sylas came bursting in a second later, calling “Delilah!” and freezing at the sight of her.

She couldn’t help a slight grin at his appearance. Lord Briarwood had been so impeccably put-together on their last few meetings, but this time he had the look of a mongrel, all wind-swept and mud-spattered. His dark eyes were wide with distress, and he was flushed with exertion. She wondered if had sprinted all the way to her garden from his side of the lake - and then, as that thought crossed her mind, he gave in to some suppressed strain. He bent over, bracing his hands on his knees. He coughed through something sticky and viscous in his throat, and she unlaced herself from the lattice and raced over to him.

Delilah braced her hands under his shoulders, trying to support him, and at her touch he wheezed, “ _Damn_ this-!” before a burst of coughing interrupted him. He spat a gob of blood to the ground between their feet. Delilah recoiled, watching the scarlet bubbles pop and slide and drip down a blade of grass. Sylas shut his eyes, mute and ashamed, and she felt a wave of regret for her insensitivity.

She took his arm, as he straightened again. “Here, Sylas, sit down-“

The only obvious spot was the single stair to the kitchen, and so she coaxed him towards it. He sat on the stair and rested his head against the door, looking out over the garden. She joined him, seated at his side. The steadily sinking sun carved a crooked line across Sylas’ face, leaving half in shadow and the other half bright. The moment they were settled, he growled, "I come here to rescue you from that imbecile and I'm the one who-".

He balled one hand into a fist and slammed it into the stair in frustration. Delilah flinched again, shying into the opposite corner of their perch. At her reaction, Sylas let his hand fall loose. His chest still heaving, he asked, in a quiet voice, “Did Sir Jules threaten you?”

“No," she said, her voice soft with fear. "But what happened to you? You’ve got mud all over you.”

 Wincing, he leaned back, still unable to meet her gaze. “I may have blacked out. From the running. Gods, what time is it? Noon?”

 “Closer to three." She swallowed. With him passing out and coughing blood, she was almost too afraid to speak. Her hands were starting to tremble, and her mind was frantically flipping through the books in her head for some kind of healing spell. "Sylas, tell me you’ll be alright.”

“Of course, my dear. Just a little dizzy,” He said, and shut his eyes. She saw him lick his teeth, clearing the last of the blood.  Delilah waited in silence as his breaths evened out, the pace of her frantic heart slowing in tandem. She took one of his hands, and he permitted the touch, winding their fingers together. Eventually, Sylas spoke again, his eyes fluttering open as if he were returning to consciousness. “Sounds like you puzzled out what I did. Did Sir Jules catch on?”

She shook her head. “They fell for it, but I don’t know if I handled it very well. I may have angered the Raven Queen.”

“Really?” Sylas drawled, a smirk touching his face.

Quietly, self-conscious, she reported, “I said it was funny that they punished necromancy by death.”

Sylas snorted, and broke into deep chuckles, thin and marred by the bruises of his coughing fit. “I'll admit I never thought of that.”

Delilah raised her hands, elated to have someone understand. “It’s like keeping an alcoholic in a wine cellar!”

“Or locking a thief up with his tools,” Sylas pointed out. “They’re the best equipped to escape.”

In a scratchy, witchy voice, Delilah declared, “Do your worst, Sir Jules, I’ll be back within the week!”

Sylas laughed outright at that, and she was pulled along into a fit of giggles. He threw his head back, and she rested hers on her knees. At last, he looked her way, a smile lingering on his face. He gave a dismissive wave with his free hand, slowly regaining his composure. “Vultures, those paladins. You should see how they are at the Hospice, hovering and proselytizing over us."

"I can imagine," Delilah said, her smile growing. Necromancers, heralds of the Goddess of Death and a renowned hospice in one town. Wildmount struck her as a particularly morbid place.

"If they bother you again, I can see about stricter measures," he offered.

Delilah tilted her head in confusion. “What could you do?”

Sylas shrugged one fur-clad shoulder. His fingers drummed an idle pattern on the back of her hand, a gesture he didn’t seem to be thinking about. “Well, I am a Lord. I have no small amount of power to abuse.”

With another short laugh, he fell silent. They sat together for a long time, and Delilah was pulled back into reflection. Sylas had dismissed her, and yet they spoke and laughed as if that had never happened. He had lied for her, unasked and possibly unwarranted, and then worked himself to the point of passing out to make sure she was not in danger. Hope started to swirl in her chest. As if he shared her thoughts, he breathed, "when you said you would think of something-" and then fell silent.

Delilah gave his hand a confident squeeze. "I'm looking for a way to cure you."

He sighed, an angry puff of air through his nose, but he did not release her hand.

Something else occurred to her, with a flash of light. She did not want to inflict any cure on Sylas if he did not consent to it, considering she had no conception of what kind of cure it would be. It could take an immense amount of energy and time. It could break rules or taboos. Most certainly, it would cost her dearly. The price of magic- she thought of the copper wire disintegrating, the value of a simple conversation - could be incredibly steep. 

Clutching tighter at his hand, she said, “Sylas, what if Sir Jules had reason to suspect me?”

He looked at her, startled. “You didn’t attack the temple.”

The way he said it - with absolute confidence - made her smile. Sylas had no more evidence than Sir Jules did, and yet he knew the truth instinctively. “I didn’t,” she repeated, “but if I broke the Raven Queen's rules to cure you-“

Struggling for words, she looked at him - and Sylas nodded. “I expect you would be forced to.” She must have looked surprised, because he continued, “I cannot be saved by common magic. I’ve checked.”

“So you have no objection?”

He rolled his eyes, exasperated. “You _know_ my objection. You should not involve yourself with me. If I can’t deter you from that, what hope have I of influencing you otherwise?”

“You could turn me in.”

“No,” he said, darkly. “I couldn’t.”

Delilah paused. Sylas's refusals felt like a formality, stories that had happened to someone else. The pair of them seated side-by-side on the stairs, fingers laced together as if it were natural – that felt utterly indisputable. She gambled, leaned her cheek against his shoulder and shut her eyes. “You’re doing a terrible job of resisting me, Sylas.”

“I was doing rather well until today,” he mused, and then pulled away. He asked, “Do you really believe you can cure me? Is that even possible?”

She nodded. “I do.”

With a long, pensive sigh, Sylas looked at her. She tried to look convinced, immovable – but he had never once been fooled by her acts. It seemed they could lie flawlessly to anyone but each other.

“Can you make it home on your own?” she said. “I could walk back with you.”

He ripped his hand from hers, and stood. Suddenly, he was frantic, his voice sharp and just too loud. “Enough, Delilah! Please.” He paced out towards the garden, then rounded on her again, one angry hand outstretched as if to pin her down– “This _thing_ you are trying to give me, this _hope -_ it is intolerable. Because it will not last.”

Sylas stared down at her, looking desperate and heartbroken. He was saying such things so she would fight back, prove him wrong, convince him otherwise. An aching guilt captured Delilah's heart. She had nothing to fight him with: she had made her promises without proof, and she knew it. Sylas let his hand fall, and turned away in frustration. She watched him leave by the garden path, and did nothing to stop his exit.

Delilah bowed her head, staring down at the swooping folds in her skirts. She made a vow that she would not disturb him again until her work was finished - until she could turn that intolerable hope into a certainty. For now, she wanted to be entirely insignificant. She slipped her hand inside the pocket of her dress, and turned the crystal earring over and over in her palm.


	4. Lightning Bolt, Thunderwave, Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning that this chapter includes mentions of suicide. Thank you to release-the-sheep for dialogue help and encouraging pictures of birds.

_If there is a single word the ignorant soul always uses incorrectly in the context of love, it is the word “pure.” The implication being, of course, that a “pure” lover desires the soul of their other half, and not the body – desires their companionship, their commitment, and desires it so innocently that lurid thoughts never enter their mind._

_There are two problems with this conclusion. First, such a lover does not exist. Lovers are creatures of contact. We crave it, even without the factor of sex. Our skin must be touched and warmed. Our hands must be captured and protected. We must feel our partners leaning on our shoulders, lest we become unmoored, untethered, and lose ourselves to lonely panic. Once I was properly and incorrigibly in love with you, I wanted nothing more than to find you on that shoreline again and simply touch your every texture. You always kept your auburn hair pinned back, my industrious little magician, so it would not trouble your focus. But my obsessions demanded it loose, tangled in my fingers. Forgetting the protests of my mind, my sympathy, my good heart and my good sense – my hands knew better what I wanted, and what I deserved._

_This leads me to the second problem  – the desire for touch is just as pure as any other desire. I could never explain it in words, so envision your hand pressed up against a window-glass, Delilah, and mine against yours from the other side. We want the glass to vanish – we ache for that. I can see it in your eyes; you can see it in mine. We need no words to express the want we share. If the glass were to disappear, we would be engaged in no crime. Our hands would meet. We might smile. There would be no harm in it, only the bliss of togetherness. Who could name us villains for wanting something as simple as that?_

_My dear, you make me so philosophical. This lyrical rambling is not my style. The point is that you did not, at last, capture me through words. When you were only an idea, a construct of my mind, it was easy to destroy you. Sleep and distance and distraction killed you, daily. But when you were in my home – when you were a physical thing, a body abandoning itself to darkness, oh, you were..._

_Well, you were so very convincing._

_That is how I will always remember you, Delilah – a blind whirl of sensations overflowing scarlet-hot with shameless bliss and mine, mine, ah, mine at last!_

_\--_

Upon reflection, this had not been the wisest of Delilah’s ideas.

She stood with her back pressed against a tree, the damp loam soaking through her shoes. Both of her hands lay trembling against her mouth, masking the sound of her breathing. The trees wove into the distance before her, wild and black; she had gone too far to see the lake. Behind her, the glow of a single lantern bled into the shadow; the leaves and trunks looked flat in the steady light, like projections or paintings. Stepping six inches to the left or right would have cast her shadow against the woodland backdrop.

She scolded herself in airless silence. A simple night of practice gone awry. Her curiosity getting the better of her. For shame! She had, on the sixth or seventh try, managed to make herself invisible. She felt the pleasant shimmer of the spell cling to her skin, constantly, gently mobile, like the water's surface over a gentle current. Raising her transparent hands, and wriggling her fingertips in girlish joy, she saw the lights in the distant trees – saw them through her own body. It was the first time since Sir Jules’ visit that the forest had been lit, and her suspicions immediately crafted a dramatic image in her mind: the black-cloaked necromancers reconvening, chanting, plotting their revenge against the zealous paladin.

She lowered her hands, and considered. If they were the necromancers, there was the option of sneaking up on them, perhaps memorizing some faces, and amending the awkward first meeting between her and the church with her evidence. The idea was logical, but unappealing. She didn’t particularly feel like scraping for Sir Jules’ approval, and she doubted they would believe her.

Alternatively, she could see what she could glean of the mages’ secrets. That dastardly, swirling, back-of-the-mind plan to gain access to such magic herself had not yet faded. Perhaps if she spied awhile, learned their pass-phrases and customs, and prepared an adequate bundle of enchantments, she could induct herself into their cult the next time she saw the lights scattered in the trees.

Or the lights could have been nothing – gravediggers, patrols. And if that were the case, it would be wise to find out, stifle her imagination, and perhaps seek the necromancers out in a less obvious place.

She approached the lights. They flickered, but did not move beyond that. They grew, and began to illuminate the details of the thick-trunked trees. She spied figures, about twenty, in a clearing. Wary and excited, she skirted from tree to tree, hoping to mask her noise and footsteps. They spoke in low voices, but freely, and she approached close enough to hear fragments of their conversation.

And that was when she felt her clever transformation slip. Cursing, she had pressed her back to the closest tree, and watched with horror as her skirt re-materialized before her eyes, an arrogantly artificial blue against the brown trunk. Had her concentration broken, in her eagerness, or had some imbecile designed the spell with a  _time limit?_

 _Stupid! Stupid, Delilah!_ Necromancers audacious enough to attack the Raven Queen’s temple would not hesitate to kill an eavesdropper. She could not risk the whisper required to cast her invisibility spell again – if she was close enough to hear them, they might have been close enough to hear her. She was stuck until they dispersed, and so she held her breath and listened.

One voice, a reedy feminine one, heretofore unfamiliar: “We can’t lose our sanctuary and our leader, one right after the other!”

A second voice responded – male, a full voice, one that carried through the trees. It was made to proclaim, not to murmur, and she heard his words with chilling clarity. He had been conducting the meeting, although most of his comments had been incomprehensible so far. He kept with that tradition, and said, “The Whispered One commands it.”

The first speaker - “Another vision?”

“Yes. We need someone close to the ziggurat.”

“So you’re just going to waltz through Whitestone and hope Lady Johana doesn’t see fit to cut your head from your shoulders?”

Most of the words meant nothing to Delilah. She had heard the name Whitestone a handful of times before – a province, or perhaps a city? She knew it was in Tal’Dorei, but it was one of those places that felt eternally distant, a cold blink of knowledge in the back of her mind, little more than a name. She'd never heard of Lady Johana, and she couldn’t even be certain she’d heard the word “ziggurat” correctly.

The other voice responded slowly, thoughtfully. “There are ways. They have children, and I have played tutor before.”

“But – we have already lost so much…”

“Calm yourself. Allies are coming. The Whispered One has assured me so, but we must be patient. And please, stop aggravating the Queen’s stooges. You are too brash.”

“Are you suggesting we abandon the-“

“Shh!”

Delilah stifled a whimper. Had the leader heard her squirm?

A single, crunching footstep. The entire group of fifteen necromancers remained breathlessly silent, and Delilah was on the verge of panic. She had to do something – she ran through everything she knew, everything she had taught herself, the fire and the light and so many useless incantations – gods, they would kill her and puppeteer her restless corpse and she would never see Sylas again-

A memory surfaced: Sylas, her gentle guardian, and his stumbling effort to protect her from her own illusion. _You minx, you,_ she thought, and with a flick of her wrist she sketched an arcane symbol in the air. To the beat of her own frantic heart, she created a scattered pastiche of sounds – grating armor, snapping sticks, and muttered orders in the icy tones of Sir Jules’ voice. The soundscape of a clumsy ambush, staged on the opposite side of the clearing, and entirely illusory. She would look for her window, make herself invisible once more, and then run.

“Douse the lights,” the leader ordered, and the lanterns blinked away into darkness.

Delilah lifted her hand, drawing the volume of her performance with it. The metal sound transformed from a scrape to a scream. The twigs cracked and clattered. She heard footsteps – not the ones she had created – scuffing in the opposite direction from her. They were deceived - it was enough - and she sprinted in the direction of the lake.

The first voice, the woman’s, shattered the tension. “You fools, it’s a trick – there!”

A flash of light burst from behind her, purple and searing, and then Delilah felt a cataclysmic pain at the base of her spine, an earthquake and solar flare ripping through her, both at once by the magnitude of the trembling and heat. To her horror, the energy tore straight through the other side of her stomach, crackling off into the trees, leaving a trail of smouldering sticks.

With a shriek of shock and pain, Delilah slipped and hit the ground, hands jamming painfully against the roots of the tree. Agony coursed through her nerves, and her throat seized shut – she could not cry out – she scrabbled her hands against her stomach, thinking they had ripped her clean in half with the bolt of arcane lightning. The very next thought cracked through her mind like a thunderclap: _I’m going to die here._

With her bruised, bloody hands, she scrabbled over the dirt and fallen pine needles, trying to rake herself forwards, away from her attackers, anywhere but here. Just as she found her balance, someone snatched her by the collar of her dress, and wrenched her back. She felt the strain on her neck and her spine and at last she found the air to scream again. Above her shoulders, she heard the crier’s-voice snarl, “It’s the girl from the manor!”

“We can’t let her pass on-“

“Shut up!”

She heard the slick slide of metal on leather – a knife drawn from a sheath, and her scream faltered to a caught sob. The cool, flat blade pressed against her throat. A voice crawled into her ear. “May I say, it is an honour, my lady.”

He jerked the knife away. She heard a slithery _sssnick._  She thudded down into the dirt, her hands jerking forwards to stop her fall. Thin, curling wisps of colour drifted to the ground around her, like russet-red feathers. He'd slit her throat. He'd slit her throat and time had slowed, presenting her a gruesome dissection of her own death, beat by beat – but no, she recognized, skittering over the moon-touched earth, locks of her own auburn hair. _He cut my hair?_

But he held her no longer. Delilah rolled onto her back and flung out her hand. A night of practice had nearly worn her through, and she was exhausted, but damned if she’d let the necromancers take her while she could still fight back. A flash of fire burst from her fingertips, and her attacker shrieked, and stumbled back from her. She scrambled to her feet, shoes slipping over the pine needles – and suddenly, the forest was alive with noise, with the yells of a dozen voices she had not heard, and the crackle of magic, the hiss of voices speaking twisted arcane words-

 “They’re here!”

“Don’t let them slip away!"

"Their souls go to the Queen tonight!”

Delilah realized she had frozen in place. Later, she would understand the coincidence – that her illusion had preempted an actual attack – but in the moment, she was stunned. She wondered, dizzily, if her evocation had summoned the Raven Queen's paladins like the call of a war horn. Holy columns light flashed through the trees from a dozen directions, and shadows skirted past them, firing sickly rays from their clawlike hands.

The chaos illuminated the man before her in brilliant flashes of white and violet. Her assailant, the leader of the necromancers. He wore a dented breastplate, and held a fistful of her hair tangled in his fingers. The man looking at her was not the sinister, sallow creature she had expected, but rather a charming, graying gentleman, with the well-fed and trustworthy face of a beloved grandfather. She had dealt him only a glancing blow, burning the left side of his cheek. She jerked back a step, and raised her hands preparing to fight, but something in his expression stopped her. He was not angered by the attack. Instead, he wore a smile he could barely contain. He looked inspired, almost proud - and ever so slightly familiar.

“I cannot stay,” he said, sounding wistful. “When you need us, my Lady, look up – and I’m sorry for this.”

He snapped his fingers in the air, and the tiny gesture produced an earshattering  _boom_. The sound hit her like a punch, lifting her clear off the ground. She soared back, and slammed crookedly against a tree. Her consciousness left her, swift as smoke blown away in the wind.

Slowly, she regained her senses - slowly, slowly dragging herself towards the light - but she was already moving. Jutting metal edges dug into her armpits, and she hung from the metallic grip with the awkward, angular stiffness of a scarecrow. Her toes scraped limply along the ground. Her hands were shackled behind her back. She was being dragged. She shut her eyes, but there was a glowing, growing light seeping through them. Voices swirled around her, in short, brusque exchanges she had trouble deciphering through the ache that gripped her every organ and limb.

“-hospitality is appreciated, my Lord. We'll be off once we have healed Sir Morrell.”

“You’re welcome to stay, so long as the patients are not disturbed.“ whoever was dragging her reached a stop, and...she knew, she knew that voice…

“…couldn’t possibly. Their leader escaped, and we have interrogations to conduct.”

“You took one alive? I’m almost impressed, Sir Jules.”

 She _did_ know that voice. She knew it, and the familiarity briefly banished her pain. Instinctively, she called – “Sylas?”

The clatter and cacophony fell quiet. She opened her eyes. All she could see were black capes and silver greaves, a mess of paladin regalia from a bizarre angle. So then, they had won the fight, and rescued her. But why had she heard Sylas’s voice? Where was she?

She fell to her knees on a thick, velvety carpet. Her hands jerked, instinctually, against her chilly restraints. Tears threatened at her eyes. She ached, and she was afraid, and she wanted to hear him speak again. The chatter resumed, inflected upwards with the tones of a dozen curious questions, but she heard no words. Then she saw a pair of bare feet pushing through the armored crowd. Someone knelt before her on the carpet, slipped their hands under her jaw, tilted her face upwards. She squinted at the sudden surge of brilliance from the lamps above, but could not repress a sigh of relief. The tender touch was mercifully familiar, and she heard the distinctive warped breath of her sweet, chivalrous Sylas.

Someone cut in, “Hold, my Lord. She could be dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” he spat. “She’s barely conscious, you imbecile. Delilah, can you hear me?”

She was glad Sylas was acting so offended – she didn’t have the energy to do it herself. For him, she managed to open her eyes, and almost winced to see his handsome face corrupted by a murderously angry expression. Oh, how she wanted to reciprocate his touch, and make him smile instead. She wanted that particular smile of knowing slyness, the one she found so unbearably attractive. Despite her wish, and the second sudden jerk of her hands, the manacles held. “Get me out of here,” she pleaded.

He whispered, “Of course, of course.” With a last, comforting graze of his thumb over her cheek, he released her. He stood. Delilah realized, with a touch of amusement, that he looked more intimidating in his nighttime dressing-gown than any of the paladins did in full plate. The staff of the Briarwood Hospice had joined the crowd, a handful of doctors all wearing a modest grey uniform. She caught the eyes of one young woman with ebony hair and a hawklike face, who looked down at her with bemused curiosity. Was Sylas her only bloody ally in this cursed place?

Even as she thought that, he barked an order to the paladins: “Release her, and take her to a bed.”

Sir Jules stepped forwards, obviously rankled at the challenge, addressing Sylas from behind his shoulder. The others waited, and watched. The paladin possessed some right of command, but Sylas spoke with such authority that they came across as graceless, lowborn rabble. Gravely, Sir Jules reported, “My Lord, this woman is under suspicion. She may have aided the necromancers in their escape-“

Fury flashed through Sylas’s eyes. He looked regal, composed, extravagant and commanding – and then, in the next second, he snapped around and thrust his whole weight into a punch. Sir Jules dropped, and hit the carpet with a blunted thud. Delilah, still limp on the floor, caught a glimpse of the fallen paladin: the blood dripping from their nose, and the stunned, appalled expression on their face.

Sylas roared, “There will be _no_ interrogations!”

Delilah's heart soared and fluttered. While the others recoiled with open mouths and embarrassed gasps, she blushed like a schoolgirl. She believed she had seen, in that split second, who Sylas was supposed to be, who he would have been without the illness stunting his ability – a gloriously powerful creature, full of impulsive energy and gallantry. A thrilled smile flashed across her face, and she loosed a breathless laugh. Sir Jules turned their shocked gaze to her, and she winked. Two of the paladins reached down to help their commander up, but there were no other protests. His shoulders still heaving, his rage still coursing through his body, Sylas swept a glare around the circle, and then ordered them a second time: “Remove the manacles, and take her to my room. Mine, nowhere else. She is not to be disturbed or harassed. Is that clear?”

Delilah shut her eyes, smiling. Clanking hands fumbled with her restraints. They vanished, with a snap. Someone swept her up from the carpet. Fabric-clad limbs this time, not metallic. A doctor. Before she fell asleep again, she absorbed as much of the Briarwood Hospice as she could: the mahogany stairwells, the thick-threaded carpets, and the windows she had so often seen from the other side. And of course, she shot a lingering parting look towards Sylas. His eyes did not leave hers until she rounded a corner. Exhausted, blissful, she leaned into the faceless doctor who carried her, and fell asleep before she reached Sylas’s bed.

When she awoke, the room was black. She lay in a smooth circle of silken-white sheets, like she had fallen asleep on the moon. Delilah looked around. She had not woken to an unlit room – rather, it was a space without edges, without floors or corners. A bizarrely incomplete space, as if someone had forgotten to fill in its details. No sound, no furniture, and the air felt distorted and heavy, as if it were filled with smoke or mist. But there was no smell of fire, nor the clear, icy scent of fog. There was nothing at all, and far too much of it.

Rising, she still felt heavy. She moved through the sludgy darkness with slow, clumsy strides, empty of energy. How long had she slept without resting? Her bed was already gone, and there was a shape in the distance that had not existed before. She approached, blinking through her lethargy. It was a picture frame, hosting a blank white canvas. It stood upright and unmarked. Sylas leaned against it, his arms folded over his chest, his eyes shut.

She leaned forwards, with a happy hum. He was pale, marble-carved and perfect. He wore an expression of flawless serenity, set as such by sleep or death. It was slightly uncanny. In her mind, Sylas always wore a sated smirk.

Delilah wondered if they were destined for tragedy. So much pain and difficulty stood in their way, and most of the time, being in love with Sylas was nothing short of agony. She knew it made him angry, too. Frustration simmered under his every word, especially when he forced himself to refuse her. But still, still, she loved him, and there was pleasure to be found in that. She had neglected that pleasure for too long. In the silence of that empty gallery, she indulged it for the first time. She reflected, joyfully, on those few moments of perfect understanding they had reached, the fleeting contact she had stolen, the one kiss they had shared. She would be dissatisfied tomorrow; today, she was just happy to see him alive, and thanked fate for allowing their paths to cross.

She kissed the pads of her fingers, and with them, touched his lips.

She froze. Instead of the cool smoothness of his mouth, she felt something slick, organic – almost - slimy?

She pulled back. The chapped skin tore away, and two spots of scarlet formed, glowed, and started to bleed angrily on his lips. He remained immobile, his hair marking soft curls of ink against the empty canvas. She held two identical clots of skin in her hand.

Then, independent of her will, her hands surged forwards and grasped his face. She tried to call “Sylas, Sylas, wake up!” but a thick muck formed in her throat, and she could not produce any noise. The moment she touched him, his flesh clung to her hands. She pulled the grimy, sloughed-off strings away, and they wrapped like tentacles through her fingers. She had torn a ragged hole in his cheek. His teeth were black. His flesh was spotted, and smelled acrid. He was decaying underneath his marble mask. Delilah stood, horrified, her hands coated with rotted skin and dripping sinews. Her sobs and screams remained stifled, crushed under the weight of something she could not identify – she knew there was magic here, but what, and from where, and why did it feel like it was _inside_ her, guiding her movement so she reached back to touch him again, ripping the muscles from his neck, shredding Sylas’s body with her bare hands-

They gave her a voice, again, so she could hear her own desperation – incoherent gasps of “no, please, please, stop, please-“

And then they were not alone anymore. The black abyss twisted itself around her, and formed into an endless shifting gallery of black hoods. They were faceless beneath, but she recognized, somehow, the necromancers: the secret web of vile magicians, extending unseen across the world. They hissed, in a thousand synchronized voices,  _Keep silent. I will save him._

She stared at Sylas, her heart singing with hope. His eyes opened in his rotted face, and he looked down at her, still frozen as a corpse – and then he vanished, along with the canvas. Delilah had been resting her weight on it, and she fell forwards. The figures drew nearer.

_Speak, you die together._

She pictured it – she was forced to. She could see flashes of familiar images, outlined in lightning and underscored with rain. The pulse of electricity gutting her stomach. The flat of a knife on her throat, turning incrementally to the sharp edge, as the powerful hand gripping it twisted. Her mother’s bare feet, swinging from the stairwell in a slow, hypnotic spiral.

And with that, the suffocating images, the horrific sensations, the magic holding her back – it all disappeared in a percussive snap, and she surged upwards out of her bed like a drowning woman, thrashing, grasping, heaving air in through her sudden tears – then she could not move her limbs, as her arms were tightly bound to her chest by something steel-strong. Delilah held her breath to stop her panting. A voice seeped into her through her cage – someone trying to speak to her – the familiar voice, the one that wrapped around her and shook in her bones. Her prison was warm. She was not captured. She was safe. She whispered, “Sylas?”

He kissed her hair, and murmured, “Hush, hush now. You were dreaming.”

Of course. She grasped the fabric before her, and she could feel a heartbeat under her hands. Selfishly, she bowed her head into his shoulder, and waited for her panic to fade. Her breaths slowed. Her heartbeat fell into step with his. Sylas held her, sturdy and immobile, his broad hands guarding her shoulders, her waist. At the fading of her shock, a pounding, unnatural pain made itself known in her head. She sighed, “Gods, this hurts-“

Sylas set her down on a cloud of overstuffed pillows. Her eyes were still shut, but she could sense the thin glow of a candle to her left. Every sharp sensation cut straight into her brain, triggering another pulse of agony. She nearly recoiled at the sound of Sylas’s voice when he spoke again, no matter how gentle it was, how low the volume. 

“You’re bleeding,” he said. She heard the whispering shift of fabric, and recognized the dampness trickling onto her upper lip. “May I?”

She nodded. The pattern of light shifted as he tilted down, and, gently, he cleaned the blood from her face. The room was very quiet, but for Sylas' short, suppressed coughs.

Fear swarmed into her through the gap left by the silence. The hooded figures loomed over her thoughts, swallowing all logic and rational rebellion in their shadow. She could only throw wild, useless questions into the dark. Had she been cursed by the necromancers in the forest? Was that their message -  _Keep silent?_  Could they kill her in dreams? Would they try to? Sleep was inconceivable, at this point, but exhaustion dragged her mind and her body down, tempting her into it once more.

Sylas coughed again. The scratch of the fabric vanished from her lips, and she heard a creak of wood, like furniture. He had moved too far away - almost like he had vanished entirely. She felt vulnerable, exposed. Scrambling, she begged, “Sylas, could you douse the light?” in the hope of hearing him speak, and alleviating her pain.

“Of course.” The glow vanished from beyond her eyelids. “You can rest,” he continued. “The paladins are gone. No one will harm you.”

 She nodded, more slowly this time. She tried to think more carefully, less wildly. In her reflection, she became convinced that it was no natural nightmare, but indeed, a vision, a threat sent directly into her soul by the distant cult. A curious thing to do. She remembered their leader, the grey-haired man with the dagger. He had apologized for hurting her. Called her  _my lady._ Offered his help - although in the typically cryptic way of magicians, he had not given her anything particularly useful.  _Look up_ , was it? Was he an ally, forced to act violently by circumstance? Neither his reverence nor his hints meant anything to her - nothing made sense at all, nothing except the blunt ultimatum that if she spoke, they would kill her and Sylas both.

The mattress dipped under her thighs. Sylas sat next to her, and trailed his fingers through her hair.  She winced, remembering the locks had been rudely cut. She probably looked ridiculous, but Sylas did not tease. Instead, he seemed to be trying to hypnotize her. The repetition of his gentle touch nearly sent her back to sleep. The bed they shared connected them with motion, like the vibrations thrumming through a spider’s web. Every shift in his body struck a corresponding chord in hers. He leaned forwards, and she knew how close he was. He whispered, “Have they-“

“Please, don’t,” she interrupted.“Please don’t ask.”

His gestures slowed to a halt, and then resumed. “I said there would be no interrogations,” he replied, his voice low and soothing. “I only want to make certain you’re not hurt.”

Perhaps she could risk that.

She opened her eyes, and let them adjust. It was not perfectly black in Sylas's room: it was darkness edged by moonlight, the curtains and armoires all silver-gilt. The window opened onto the image of the shoreline forest, and the black mirror of the lake. Everything was perfectly peaceful, and Sylas sat before her, his strong, shadowy figure leaning forwards, his warm hand in her hair.

She banished the dream from her mind, and instead, she recognized an opportunity. Sylas's room -  _mine, nowhere else_. It felt a little scandalous to be there in the middle of the night, wrapped in his sheets. She rubbed the fabric between her bare feet, capturing a thrill from the private texture. The fastidious doctor who carried her upstairs had also taken her shoes and her dress, and praise whatever protocol of medicine or sanitation had inspired that decision. Imagine Sylas trying to throw her out now, in her underclothes - Hah! Perhaps they could finally _talk_ , without her flighty love escaping as he had so many times before. She turned towards him, smiled, and folded her hands on her chest. "I'm perfectly alright."

 “Liar,” he growled, and she sensed his mounting frustration. "How can you be certain? Would you know, if they'd cursed you?"

Delilah nearly threw her hands up. As touched as she was by his concern, she had already abandoned the topic herself. "I thought you said no interrogations?" she asked. "Isn't this the part where you never want to see me again, or must we build up to that?"

An angry sigh from Sylas. She felt the curls of furious, rattling air against her cheeks. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and argued, “Forgetting each other will not be easy, but if you keep throwing yourself in my path it will be impossible. Especially if you insist on risking your bloody life to do it!"

He made violent gesture of dismissal, one that crashed into the bedside table. An ugly crack of wood and clatter of metal followed. Unfazed, Delilah pushed herself up on the heels of her hands. She couldn’t let him stay like that, looking down at her, keeping her pinned under his presence. “Maybe we're not supposed to forget each other,” she suggested.

He laughed, bitterly. “I knew you were stubborn, but I did not think you were a fool.”

The insult cut her deep, and she leaned forwards with a sudden flare of rage. For the first time, she saw Sylas as an opponent, not an ally. Nobody who knew her would call her a fool.“A fool," she repeated, venomously, "because I want to save your life?”

“You could be killed for chasing an answer that may not even exist!" he fired back. His voice was terrifying in his rage. It rumbled with a harsh, animal growl. "Is this about your dedication to me, or your ego?”

No, no - this was not fair, not fair - he was pushing towards things he couldn't know, carving out the last secret she had kept entirely for herself. This was not the plan. Halfway to shouting, she answered, “Of course it’s about you! You can’t – you don’t understand—“

“What is there to understand?”

"I can't give up. I can't let you die. It's - I can't."  _Sylas, please, don't make me say it. I can't hurt you like that._

"Even if your own life is at risk?"

"Yes."

"And that's not foolish?"

"No, it's  _fair!_ "

"Fair?" he repeated, confused.

All at once, the wall inside her cracked. Delilah, desperate, said “I wasn’t looking for my earring.”

Silence. Confused, blank silence. Delilah sighed. Her shoulders collapsed inwards. She curled over her stomach, as if she could somehow hide from what she had just revealed. Sylas said nothing, but she knew what his mind was doing. She did not have to see the comprehension growing on his face. He would decipher the statement. He would realize what she referred to - the night they met, on the shore of the lake. He would replay the moment, over and over. He would try to determine what else she could have been doing, and he would desperately avoid the obvious answer, the way she had when she had first read the words BRIARWOOD HOSPICE.

Delilah stared down at her hands. She had tried to spare herself, to save herself. Of that night, she had tried to remember only her moments with Sylas – their conversation, their kiss – because they were easier. They distracted her. They healed her. But he had summoned the other truth, the secondary story. She confessed to the void, her voice cracked and ruined with her tears.

“I was gathering stones,” she said. “Stones to weigh me down. And then I – I was going to walk into the lake.”

His voice was barely a whisper. “You…”

Nothing more.

Delilah continued, automatic. It amazed her how hollow it all felt, saying such things aloud. There was no strain or agony, not anymore – just a slight resistance in her words, as each one was so complex to formulate, so inadequate. She said, “You already know we buried my mother that night. It was because she had that...the same compulsion as I do. We could always talk to each other about it. But when she gave in, I –“ she tripped over her words, clumsily regained her footing, “I felt so alone. I thought I had failed her, and I could see no other way out. I planned an easeful death for myself, and I was set on it until the very moment you called for me.”

_Is this your quarry, madam?_

She remembered the words and the glinting crystal in his hand, and she almost smiled. She looked up at him, and he sat immobile, unreadable in the dark. “You already gave me time, Sylas. More time than I thought I wanted. Certainly more than I had. Even if you won’t love me, I cannot abandon this. Don’t you see?”

Another long silence. He bowed his head, and covered his face with his hands.

“Oh, my dear girl,” he said, at last, and his voice was trembling with tears. “I didn’t realize. I didn't know.”

Delilah felt no such tearful pity for herself. Her heart broke for Sylas, for the cruelty she had just inflicted on him. Had he felt this same crippling, clawing guilt, when he had told her about his own impending death? She shuffled down the mattress towards him, and rested her hand on his arm. He jerked under her touch, an instinctual refusal, but she held fast. A shaky, wet breath in from Sylas. He lowered his hand over hers. Waited. "Enough of this," she whispered. 

He took the other hand from his face, and met her eyes. There were no barriers left between them, nothing left to expose. She had muffled her desires with endless study and distant wishes, and perhaps she could have done so again - but Sylas had clawed her open and left her raw. They could do this dance of hope and disappointment no longer. They knew too much, and had gone too far. It was time.

In a quiet, even voice, she said, “I wore a mask for so long. I pretended my mother’s death hadn’t shattered my heart. I pretended I was not aching for want of you. I don't care what you must do - what needs to change – but I will not wait."

Sylas interrupted, "Wait?"

"For you," she said. "I know you are mine in your heart already, as I am yours. You pretend you can't have me, and I understand why. But this is a masquerade. This is a  _lie._  What use have we for lying? All you need to do is say yes."

He stared at her. The word itself was never spoken. Instead, he kissed her, and she could still feel damp trails of tears on his skin. And the kiss itself felt like a spell, soothing, enchanting. It was not a kiss of impulse and passion, as the first had been, but of immense relief, relief of all tension and pain. A sedating kiss, a kiss of hemlock comfort - but most importantly, it was a long-awaited affirmation. She had him at last, at last.

When he stopped to breathe, Delilah said, almost laughing, “You’re not accepting me out of pity, are you?”

“No, my love," he murmured, banishing the last of the tears from his voice. She smiled - oh, how long she'd been waiting to hear that. "I am accepting out of faith."

Slowly, his arms wound around her back, drawing her in. "Faith?" she pushed.

"You'll save me.” 

He had said it firmly, but incredulously - an indisputable truth he could barely believe. Delilah whispered, “I will."

She kissed him, and he relaxed into her, the corners of his mouth soft and unsmiling. A weak and wistful hand swished through her curls, found a place to rest among the rough-cut locks and the thin cloth chemise. Consent, if not a plea. Delilah granted his wish. She freed him of his dressing-gown, and set him down beneath her, pressed his naked back to the silken knot of sheets.

A pause: she was on the verge of crystallizing a dream, of finally possessing what she had only imagined. It was not an insignificant moment. Sylas watched her, unmoving, with the mournful obedience of a hound. She pressed her fingers to his lips, wondering if they would melt away, like in her nightmares.

He shut his eyes. He cradled her hand in both of his, and kissed its flesh. Her pulse surged. Her fingers seized. Such meagre gestures were not enough – they would never be enough again. She heaved a shaky breath in, snarled her fingers in his hair, and kissed him with unbridled fire. He arched upwards, latched his arms around her, and responded, a perfect mirror of her own passion.

Delilah held him, and drowned the last of her doubts. The consuming, maddening tactility - the heat and the stinging and the softness - it barely left room for thought, but oh, she adored the dizzying romance of it all. What could possibly mark a better climax to their fairytale? Those moon-spilled sheets, those deep, secret kisses. And Sylas, dark and arching with her slightest gestures - he was a flawless hero. He murmured and moaned with the smooth, hollow ease of an instrument under a virtuoso's touch. Everything from the shallow scratches of his beckoning nails to the desperate rasp in his breath to the heavenward surge of his head was perfect, perfect. She had him - she had him - at last they were together. The world outside stood in breathless stasis. The stars and clouds hung immobile. With brilliant, unimaginable power, Delilah tore them out of the universe, and for a second - just a second - she erased everything that could hurt them, and everything that would ever try to tear them apart.

She did not sleep that night. Sylas did, after a fashion. He stretched his cooling limbs and gave her a rattling, shut-eyed sigh. He said, “a curious thing – I’ve still got that earring of yours.” He smiled – not a smirk, only a lazy kind of bliss – and his breathing began to slow.

Sylas slept, but Delilah was a tempest. She watched him, making sure every breath was followed by another. She thought of everything she had tried to banish – of Sylas’ death impending, of the necromancers hiding in the trees, and of the whispered words of her dream. In her swirling, emotional state, she realized those burdens were all connected. They were the same.

 _Keep silent, and I will save him_.

She loved him, she loved him, and if silence bought his life she would never speak again.

  _I swear_ , she thought, _I will not tell a soul._


	5. Dimension Door

_Do you remember the passage of those blissful days, Delilah, as clearly as I?_

_In those days our love was the noblest any storyteller could imagine – selfless and passionate at once! When you told me you were leaving, did I attempt to bind you? Did I hoard my most precious treasure from the greedy eyes of the world? No, I was so proud I wept! I released her, regardless of the agony! My sweet empress had already made my heart her territory; now she would set out to conquer foreign shores, and claim her arcane throne. I would sing her praises from her homeland, and await the vision of the sails of her ship breaching the horizon, returning to me._

_Yet my darling shed her own tears, her own selfless tears, at the thought of abandoning her Sylas to solitude. She knew I craved her presence – I devoured her attention – I ached for her touch – I dreamt of her, I thought of her, I needed her every day – and she could hardly bear to leave me bleeding, incomplete, alone._

_I would not select single memory of you to cling to for eternity, Delilah. You are too expansive for that: you are too sublime. You are a galaxy beyond the scope of my immortal eyes, and even the parts of you I captured only ever hinted at something bigger, wiser, and grander than me. I need every fragment I have ever collected to even begin to describe you._

_But if I were forced to, I could easily decide the day, the moment, down to the second. It was not the moment you said yes, but the moment before that – it was the moment you decided to say yes. I could see the conviction in you, somewhere between hard-headed determination and a leap of faith, that you would overturn the sentence fate had delivered me. You would challenge death and conquer her, too._

_That is how I will always remember you, Delilah – your dark eyes bright with tears, your delicate hand in my clumsy, shaking fingers, your trembling lips on the brink of promising me eternity._

_\--_ _._

After that night, Delilah wasted three years on the indulgence of her own happiness. Her private study did not entirely cease, but pleasure consumed time with voracity. The generous summer sun coaxed her into spending entire days at Sylas’s side; the winter chills seduced her into clinging at his feverish body. When thunderstorms raged over Wildmount, she recalled, with an ache like a sickness, how the necromancer’s lightning bolt had nearly felled her, and only Sylas’s touch and gentle whispers could calm her trembling. She would think, each morning, that she would always have time to read before the sun set; and she would always realize, at night, that Sylas had taken another day from her by doing nothing at all.

Well, almost nothing. On his good days he was a voracious lover: they lost hours and hours to the pursuit of pleasure, to senseless worship of each other’s bodies.

They made a show of proper courtship with walks into town, or splendid dinners in luxuriant clothes, or elaborate gifts – but such events were mere performances for the benefit of their spectators, for Delilah’s father and the people in the town. They did not need the time to decide whether they were in love, or how deeply: they knew that well enough. After mere weeks they could speak with the slightest gestures, hold conversations in glances, and parting from each other carried the ache of an amputation. They knew.

Of course, their affair did not progress smoothly, and not in the least because of Sylas’s degeneration. He spent nearly half of those three years bedridden, and with increasing frequency. Delilah quickly grew fluent in the language of infections and relapses, fevers and pneumonias. When he was in an utterly wretched state, he would not see her: she sat instead in the salon of the Briarwood Hospice, sometimes for days, clinging to her knees and unable to eat or breathe until he was, as the doctors said, “out of the woods.” (An expression she loathed for its irony; she liked thinking of Sylas _in_ the woods, when she had first met him, when his stature and confidence had so flawlessly masqueraded his fate, anonymous and immortal.)

But the disease was not all that impeded them. Delilah’s father approved more of her courtship of a noble than of her study of magic, but even he could grow wary at the intensity of their connection. She found herself concocting a whole medley of enchantments to dull his worries, so no confrontation would prevent her from seeing Sylas. Delilah would send the man to sleep, or modify pieces of his memory, or simply sway his decisions to permit her days, weeks, months of freedom to spend at Sylas’s side.

And there was also Sir Jules to contend with. The night after catching Delilah with the necromancers, the paladin became convinced of her hidden guilt, and absolutely fanatical about proving it. Delilah found their crusade tiresome, and when the law was certainly on her side, she could not help but provoke them. She practiced her magic loudly, constantly, and perfectly legally on the Briarwood Hospice grounds, shooting bursts of fire into the sky, shattering boulders, shifting the very tides of the lake. Thus her skills grew: partly out of her quest to save Sylas, but also in no small part out of spite. Sir Jules managed to attach four counts of public property damage to her name, and even then, it required some utterly astounding legal cartwheels. Sylas paid the damages, and the young lovers would share hours of laughter at the look on the foiled paladin’s face.

They pretended the convictions were inconsequential. They were not. Delilah never saw the inside of a prison, nor was her name ever officially tied to the cult of necromancers. Rumour and scandal, however, were more insidious forces than the law. She knew they spoke behind her back and called her witch. Sylas fired any doctors and expelled any patients who spoke ill of her at first, until Delilah learned of the practice and told him not to bother. Their words meant nothing, not while she had him.

She remained convinced of that creed for those three, blissful years, until it – and everything else that kept her stable in Wildmount – was shaken by the one person she had come to think of as a constant. And she knew better – she had always known better.

\--

“Delilah-“

“No.”

“Delilah, sweet pea-“

She latched her arms around his shoulders and pulled herself up across the bed, ignoring his winded huff. She drew her knees up as if she were recoiling from the offending object that lay there: the book. Delilah had thrown it across Sylas’s bed in unrestrained frustration. It was a waste of paper and coin, and she looked at its cracked spine and splayed sheets with unrestrained derision.

“Don’t ‘sweet pea’ me,” she grumbled. “It’s as worthless as the rest of them.”

Like every other text she’d consulted on high-level healing magic, it made the same claim. She’d read that despicable caveat so many times that the phrasings began to blend together:  _Healing magic is restorative in nature, not transformative. Its effect remains limited to the reversal of inflicted wounds or acquired diseases. Regardless of their school, most healing spells cannot be used to alter the course of pre-existing conditions._

It was that _most_ she truly despised. _Most_ healing spells. The exceptions were never elaborated upon; she was left to wonder and throw tantrums. Sylas’s “pre-existing condition” was in fact so delicate that most magical treatments were entirely useless, even to soften the blows of his coughs or cure his occasional bouts of intense illness. It was all potions and poultices; every day, including this one, there were a half-dozen corked bottles at his bedside, and he drank from them at clockwork intervals.

Sylas shifted closer and kissed her temple, then her cheek. He cradled her, obediently, and spoke in a teasing voice as if he were trying to seduce her into study. “Come now,” he purred. “You barely touched the introduction.”

“And yet,” she said bitterly, “I already know how it ends.”

“Stubborn girl,” he replied, with fondness. He kissed her again, under her jaw, his lips hot with fever. He’d been bedridden for three days, and Delilah planned to study a new book alongside him while he recovered. Sylas had never taken to the practice of magic himself, but he would listen to her read aloud, or summarize her notes. Explaining magic to him always helped her understand it better, and he liked to quiz her in return. By refusing the book she had condemned them both to boredom – and Sylas grew bored much more rapidly than she.

He stopped his idle affections to cough politely into his shoulder. Delilah shifted her hands out of the way as he turned, and rested them in his lap instead. She knew the frowns and lurches that marked a coughing fit or oncoming dizzy spell. She had learned the dance of his disease, and they handled it largely without talking about it.

Sylas shook his head, and blinked blearily. Still a bit worn from the days spent in bed, it seemed. “Nothing of interest at all, then?”

“Nothing new,” she clarified. She shot one leg out and kicked the book to the floor, and once it clattered to silence, occupied herself with Sylas instead. He lay bound under the sheets, but she could still trace his form in their folds. Certainly, he’d still be much too ill for sex, so she kept her touches tame, her fingers following a gentle, meandering walk up his waist. “I swear I’ve been through every book in this blasted town.”

“You’ve been improving,” he pointed out. Some small discomfort needled at him. He shut his eyes, as if to enjoy the touch, but they were screwed shut, almost strained. His teasing smile came out more like a wince. “Without warning your poor, fragile Sylas,” he complained.

She smacked him lightly on the ribs, and he chuckled. Delilah had just mastered a short-range teleportation spell, and surprised Sylas that afternoon by arriving through an arcane purple portal instead of the bedroom door. The look on his face had been entirely worth it – a lovely mix of shock fading into pride.

“If it makes you feel any better,” she said, smiling bashfully, “I screwed it up so fantastically the first time that I sent my favourite pair of shoes to the Astral Plane.”

He laughed, rasping through his swollen throat, and cracked one eye open to look at her. “You never told me that.”

She bowed her head onto his shoulder. “Because it’s ridiculous,” she replied, grinning despite herself.

His shoulders continued to tremble with laughter, his voice hitching on his recurring cough. “I imagine you’ve made some – some lucky extradimensional being the envy of all its friends, then-“

Delilah snickered at the image, while Sylas laughed in her ear. Her laughter faded – and she knew something - his voice - it sounded wrong. She panicked, pressed up onto her hands, and looked down at her beloved. His eyes flashed about the room, quick and wild. His chuckles had transformed into airless gasps, his chest lurching erratically under her touch. She caught half-coherent sentences emerging from his lips while his heart thundered at an impossible pace, beating so quick and hard she thought it would punch through his ribs. His eyes found her, and he looked suddenly, horribly afraid.

“Help – help!”

She screamed before she thought to speak, and leaped from the bed. While Sylas thrashed and clawed at the sheets, Delilah ran for the door and burst through it. Her own heart seemed to grow cold, and stop with shock. There was not a soul to be found in the hall – no doctors, no attendants. She ran for the stairs, calling until her voice grew hoarse; “Help! Help! Something’s wrong – Lord Briarwood – Sylas – help!”

It took agonizing seconds for her voice to carry through the Hospice, and at long, long last she heard the rush of footsteps up the stairs. She did not turn to see how many followed her, only led the cluster of doctors back to his room, tears blurring her eyes.  They pushed beyond her, rushing for Sylas’s side, and their voices became nonsense. Delilah gripped the doorframe, watching for movement, for signs, for anything that would make sense of this sudden calamity. She heard a brief silence in the chatter, and then the whole group shifted together, helping Sylas to the edge of his bed. She watched his shoulders heave under their hands, and heard him retching.

Delilah did not look away until someone pulled her back from the door and pinned her to the wall outside. Too shocked to fight, she glared up into the piercing eyes of another doctor, who quickly scanned her with a set of sharp grey eyes.

“Tell me what he took,” she said briskly.

“What?” Delilah replied, her voice weak and cracked.

The woman released her grip, and drew back. She did not speak with any kindness in her voice, but there was no accusation either. “The draughts at his bedside table. What did he take?”

Sylas took so many different potions and medicines throughout the day that Delilah barely noticed the act any more. She shut her eyes and tried to remember, retraced their steps and touches a half-dozen times, and hit upon it. “Yes, I think – there was something pale - it resembled milk. He drank a – maybe a quarter of the bottle, perhaps a third?”

As soon as she identified the drink, the doctor’s lip curled, and she glanced into the room again. She seemed satisfied with whatever she witnessed, and Delilah peeked around the corner to see Sylas still turned away, spitting and coughing.

“What happened?” Delilah asked the doctor.

“He overdosed,” she answered crisply, and Delilah had to grip the doorframe again. “He’s always far too impatient to treat himself properly. Lord Briarwood doesn’t understand how sick he actually is-"

“Hold your tongue,” Delilah snapped. The doctor looked surprised, even slightly offended, but she obeyed. “Where the bloody hell were you? Where are all the doctors?”

“Those who quit, or those who remain?”

“ _Quit?_ ”

“Most of them left as the patients did.”

“When they died, you mean?”

“No. When they left. Apparently they began to think their mortal bodies would not be respected. It got to some of the weaker-minded doctors as well, but the wiser of us don’t put stock in religious ramblings.”

 _Religious ramblings._ Delilah was immediately seething. She’d witnessed Sir Jules and their small group of paladins sweeping in and out of the hospice, administering last rites, carrying bodies to their graves. Had they spared a minute to gossip, then, and to spread the word that she was a necromancer lying in wait, plotting to use their corpses for profane acts once their souls had left the world? Her rage warred with her fear, but she found an outlet for neither. Her teeth clenched, she took a breath to steady herself, and regarded the doctor before her. The woman still looked bored.

Now that she had calmed somewhat, Delilah recognized the doctor: she was largely responsible for administering and managing the potions and medicines in the Hospice. Her name wavered in the back of Delilah’s head for a minute until it snapped into clarity, and she addressed her aloud.

“I appreciate your candor, Doctor Ripley,” she said, “thank you for staying.”

Her expression of distant boredom lit up somewhat – her eyes grew curious, although she did not smile. In a lighter voice, she replied, “Well, so long as the pay is good.”

Delilah turned back to glance into Sylas’s room. He lay back against his pillow, his eyes shut, and his lips stained black by whatever vile antidote they had given him. He looked exhausted, but even from a distance, Delilah could see the slow rise and fall of his breath. “Will he be alright?”

Ripley sighed, short and dismissive, and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “I imagine so,” she replied. “He’ll need to rest properly, of course, under our supervision.”

The ‘properly’ carried a hint of polite dismissal about it. Delilah knew better than to bother Sylas in such a state, and she turned away from the door again. She asked, “What does that medicine do? Why would he take so much?”

The doctor explained, “A proper dose keeps him awake and alert for a period of time. Like a cup of black coffee, only much stronger.”

Delilah shut her eyes. She’d surprised him without warning earlier that day. He’d been too tired for her visit, but rather than admit to it, Sylas had drugged himself to keep up with her pace. And that convinced her: she was chasing off his doctors and endangering his life. His attack had been her fault.

To Doctor Ripley, she said, “Thank you. When he wakes up, would you give him a message from me?”

“I imagine I could.”

“Tell him I..."

Delilah stopped. Her words, at this point, would accomplish nothing. Ripley waited for her answer.

She said, "-never mind-" and rushed down the stairs, as if she expected the doctors to chase her away.                                                                           

\--

Delilah returned home, avoided contact with her father, and shut herself away into her bedroom. She fell upon the sheets, feeling cold and small, too tired and ashamed to cry. Sylas had nearly died in her arms, and she had been powerless – and worse, at fault.

For the first time since she and Sylas had met, a dark, aching exhaustion grew out of a mire in her mind, and dragged her slowly towards it. Her breaths were heavy. She strained thick, sludgy air into her tired lungs. She had neither the power nor the resources to save Sylas, and beyond that, she was slowly losing the energy to undertake anything. She willed herself to stand, to roll out of bed, to open one of the books at her disastrously disorganized desk, but she could not force her limbs to move. Her mind and body were paralyzed with exhaustion, and she thought, with all the coldness of a diagnosis, _this is where you to give up, Delilah. He will die soon enough, and the best you can hope for is to join him. Pre-empt his demise. Die first. That would be easiest; that would be best._

She could not imagine an argument to the contrary. She thought of the cool embrace of the lake, of her mother’s feet swinging in the stairwell. Maybe she would even be setting Sylas free, in a way. Without the pressure of courting her, he could live out his short life in peace, free of his foolish overdoses – and at the practicality of the thought – _die, Delilah_ – she grew slowly terrified.

_Is that truly what you want? After everything you’ve done and seen and learned – after falling in love with him, is that still what you want?_

Part of her said _yes,_ and with conviction. Sleep, death, anything would be better than feeling so hopeless-

Delilah chose sleep, largely because it took less effort. When she opened her eyes again the room was dark, lined in silver by the moon. She felt as if she had not rested at all, and lay for a long time on top of the sheets, staring at the canopy above her bed. She let her head fall to the right, and saw the dim glitter of the earring on her bedside table.

She’d nearly forgotten, but she had promised Sylas to never entertain thoughts of her own death again. She had betrayed him twice over that day, and that was truly unforgivable.

With that small kernel of conviction, she reached for the earring. Her drowsy, clumsy fingers knocked it from the table, and it clattered to the floor. Delilah swore, and leaned out of her bed, grappling across the ground for the fallen jewel. It had rolled under the end table, so she slipped from her sheets and onto her knees, rescuing it from the dust. She leaned back against the closest wall, and scrubbed the gray smudges away with her thumb until it felt clean enough to wear. Then she slipped the ornament on, and tilted her head back against the wall to feel its gentle pendulum swing.

She would have to apologize to Sylas in person – for letting him down, for running away, and for her moments of weakness. Perhaps she would visit him tomorrow, or the day after if he had not recovered yet.

As she opened her eyes, a strange silver line caught her eye, running a ridge through the ceiling above her bed. It was a trapdoor, opening onto an attic or a crawlspace, which had been hidden by the canopy.

For a long moment, she thought it mundane; a simple curiosity, something she had not noticed before, since she had never looked at the room from that angle. But it bothered her, and felt more significant than something simply misplaced or forgotten...and at length, she remembered another promise. A promise for assistance, should she ever need it: _Look up_. 

It seemed ridiculous, ridiculous and foolish to pull that horrible night from her memory, to suddenly trust the word of a necromancer. Is that what he had meant? Look up above her bed? Had the answer been so simple?

Delilah breathed out, and stood. Even in the dull light of the moon, the shape was unmistakable. She sketched a circle in the air with her hand, broad and loose, and carved a portal through space that opened to whatever rested above the ceiling. It was the same spell she had used earlier, to sneak into Sylas’s room. Already, it felt so easy.

After a swish of magic across her body, like a burst of strong, icy wind, she arrived in an utterly black room. The purple glow of the portal illuminated, for the barest second before it clapped shut, a cramped, cluttered space with a low-sloped ceiling, and she barely ducked quickly enough to avoid slamming her head into a cross-beam. Delilah summoned a light to her fingertips, and suppressed a cry at what she saw.

Bones, feathers, shattered chalk and teeth lay strewn about the attic in ugly piles, lumped on top of the dusty boxes or strewn across the floor. Under the detritus lay the lines of a painted arcane glyph. Its symbols were smudged and skewed, and marred by fingerprints and handprints, like the paint had been palmed against the floor. Trembling, she kicked some of the bones away to see the full picture of it, her free hand over her mouth. More than the components of whatever ritual had taken place there, the pattern of the glyph itself enthralled her. The markings were just  _wrong_ somehow - backwards, inverted - distorted, like a reflection in a broken mirror.

She realized, with dawning horror, what she had discovered: the sanctuary the necromancers had lost. While her mother's house lay dark and abandoned, the necromancers had used it for their rituals. Everything before her marked everything they had left behind. No wonder Sir Jules had been so suspicious of her – she had never thought to survey her own home, but doubtless any spell meant to detect magical energy would find the place absolutely pulsing with the vestiges of necromancy.

Delilah scanned the repulsive wreckage, another question rising in her mind, one equally hopeful and hysterical. The necromancers had promised to help her, even as they scattered; perhaps something in the attic would be useful. Swallowing her revulsion, she rushed further into the little room, kicking clattering bones aside as she went. She saw broken candles, spilled ink – and beyond those, old crates, dust-covered. On one of the boxes, she finally recognized a more welcoming shape: a book, its spine and cover black leather, with the symbol of a hand cradling an eye etched into the front. She rushed towards it, slipped her fingers under the cover, and flipped the book open to the first page.

Finally, she caught her breath, and lowered her glowing hand to read.

The inside was inscribed with text, but it was not any language she knew: she did not even recognize the script. Delilah flipped through the pages, and found block after block of useless, indecipherable letters. Occasionally, the text was interspersed with necromantic glyphs like those on the floor, but without the instructions, trying to use them herself would be disastrous.

And...and yet...

A strange fascination stirred in her heart. The glyphs were maddeningly complex, but as she found more and more, she began to see patterns. Every other book she'd read had condemned necromancy as an abomination, as the very antithesis of life and goodness. The authors delivered this verdict without explanation, without justification or evidence. When Delilah looked at the genuine article, at the symbols themselves - when she looked closely - she did not see the inherent poison in their nature. Instead, she saw a kind of bizarre harmony in their construction, a balance of energies – one she could not understand quite yet, but one that instantly summoned her insatiable curiosity.

Performing different kinds of magic produced very different sensations. She enjoyed every school she had encountered so far, but none of them had matched her preferences absolutely. Enchantment she found too imprecise, too misty and mysterious; conjuration felt too wild and energetic, like the magic was wrenched from her hands the moment she cast it. They lacked the control and complexity she had always desired in magic without being able to explain it. Staring at the intricate, inscrutable glyphs of the necromancers, a haunting feeling of _familiarity_ grew in her chest. Though the idea was almost instantly, even viciously dismissed by the more practical parts of her mind, a small, awed voice, like a child, whispered _this is it._

Delilah closed the book, lifted it and held it to her chest. Her mind raced.

There could be something vital in the book – if she could crack it – but she had no way of breaking the cypher, and guessing with such fine magic could be disastrous. She had not seen the necromancers since Sir Jules’ raid three years prior, and she had frequently retraced her steps to their meeting-place and found it utterly untouched. She considered seeking out the nameless man who had guided her here, but she could not remember where he had said he had gone.

But there was another option: Emon. The Lyceum there had one of the greatest reserves of books in the world, and brilliant arcanists and mages around every corner. Perhaps she could find the means to decode it there – and even if the book the necromancers had left her was a dead end, surely someone there could help Sylas.

Sylas.

She sat down with a clatter, leaning against the nearest box, and she felt immediately ill. Emon was very, very far from Wildmount. Leaving him to save him was an option she had imagined before, but only lightly, distantly; it hurt too much to consider at length. The book she held in her hands made that decision concrete. A woman of greater faith would have called it a sign. Her chest ached, burning with the unavoidable knowledge that she would have to depart, and soon. Sylas's state worsened every day; his time grew ever shorter.

The decision, in the end, was not as difficult as she had imagined. By the next evening, she had charmed her father into giving her money and permission for the journey, and booked passage on a ship. It was a six-week sail, and after that, an unknowable amount of time away; she spent the four days leading up to her departure packing everything she owned, writing letters of introduction to her future teachers, and slowly and carefully destroying all evidence of the necromancers in the attic. She kept the book intact, and packed it in a half-dozen places before she realized she would have to keep it with her, on her person; it would not be safe anywhere else.

Still, she was cunning, and determined. None of her tasks troubled her, except the need to tell Sylas of her plan. Each day she shied back under a veil of excuses - he was probably still too weak to see her after the overdose, and she had many other things to prepare. The excuses, of course, did not last long; soon, speaking with Sylas was the only task that remained.

Delilah's final evening in Wildmount pulsed with heat, and swirled with summer dust. As the sun set behind the trees, she made her way to the Briarwood Hospice, eyes skimming unfocused over the ground. She kicked pebbles, pursuing each one down the road until she lost track of it. As she walked, she crafted her words. Her explanation would have to be perfect - the perfect combination of apology and resistance - but her mind seemed to move slower in the haze of dusk, and she could find no such perfect phrase.

She approached the bridge along the path, her head still bowed in thought, and a voice called to her, familiar-

“Have you something on your mind, my dear?”

He leaned against the stone rail, looking down at the tangle of wildflowers growing in the fragile creek. Sylas seemed - he looked - it was a word she had never associated with him before, but he looked  _light._ Skin warm with the sunset, sparks of gold in his chestnut hair, his broad arms folded but no weight pressed upon them, an ivory shirt hanging loose on his frame. The Sylas in her mind was a strong, solid creature, and the one before her - hunched over the bridge, looking away, thinner and paler - was only a specter of him. He did not cough or seize, but he was terribly, terribly ill, and she ached with her sudden awareness of it. She worried that if she touched him, he would fade like a mirage: she had never been more afraid of loving him.

The strange impression passed her by, after a moment, and so she joined him at the bridge, leaning on her elbows and copying his posture. Below them, the grasses buzzed with little lives, with crickets and dragonflies, with stray blossoms and slender thorns.  Delilah wondered if he had come to the bridge every night to wait for her, or if he had simply chosen this very evening by pure, perfect coincidence.

She said, "I'm killing you, aren't I?"

Sylas chuckled. He scratched some mortar from the stones, and flicked it into the ditch below them. Idle fidgeting. He mumbled, "Don't give yourself so much credit."

There was no strain in the following silence. Delilah let it linger for as long as she dared. Fury and frustration built in her heart - that she would have to be the one to destroy this, to end this peace - it was so unfair. At last, carefully guarding her tears, she said, “I’m leaving for Emon."

"Mm," he said. He shifted, folding his hands tight together, and did not elaborate.

Trembling, she asked, "Are you angry with me?”

She could hear the smile in his voice, next. “If I said I was, would that stop you from leaving?”

“No.”

At last, he looked at her - she could feel his eyes seeking hers - and she looked away, down at the stones, at her own hands. She could not afford to waver. His anger would not have stopped her from leaving; but kind understanding would bind her there like shackles.

Gently, he said, “I did warn you this would be unpleasant.”

“I can suffer the unpleasant parts. But if I can do something to-“

“Don't fret now, my darling."

He did not reach out with his hands, but the words were enough - they were a soothing gesture in her direction, low and smooth and baritone, and they caressed her until she calmed. "I know," he continued. “I always knew you would go. You tell me how you dream of studying magic – you get that brilliant, fiery look in your eye – you look indomitable when you speak with conviction, Delilah. So beautiful it breaks my heart. Who could dream of stopping you?”

"I'll come back and I'll save you,” she promised, her voice a bitter whisper. Her false smile fell away. Sylas rose from where he leaned against the bridge, and approached her, and at the looming warmth and strength she loved so much, Delilah shut her eyes, fought her rising tears, and pleaded, “I’m so sorry, Sylas. I’ll write, and –“ a tear escaped, and she brushed it angrily away with her fingertips, “-and I’m working on a spell-”

“Hush, my love-” he interrupted, and pulled her tight into his arms. She did her best to obey, swallowing her sobs, stifling them in the front of his jacket. Her arms rested pinned across her chest, but she did not unwind them to hold him, not at first. There was something comforting about being utterly imprisoned in his grasp. She was protected, and nearly immobile but for Sylas’s gentle swaying, back and forth, like a boat or a cradle. Her weeping stopped, and she turned to press her cheek against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat. “I’m already very happy, you know,” he murmured. The words thrummed through her bones, more vibration than sound. “Are you? Right now, here with me, are you content?”

She nodded. His heart thundered on.

"Then I should go with you," he mused. "I'll stow away on that ship. Or maybe I'll swim the channel to Whitestone, and walk from there?"

Her tears threatened to return - poor jokes, the lot of them, trying to cheer her up. They both knew that if Sylas left his doctors and aides he would be dead within a week. Worst of all, she sensed the sincerity of a dream within his words. She had heard that tone of voice before; she knew he was, at heart, a physical beast, a creature made to fight and run and live. She dreamed of learning in Emon; perhaps he dreamed of taking the journey there for the journey's sake, of the effort, the exhilaration. One day, she swore, she would give him that; one day they would cross that sea together.

And with that conviction, she already felt a little better. Sylas seemed to sense it, and squeezed her tighter, pressing a kiss to her hair. “This hasn’t been all that terrible so far, has it?”

“But for the overdoses,” she said. The words were cut in two by a slight hiccup, but no less venomous for it.

He stopped swaying. “So the Doctors ratted me out, eh?”

Delilah smiled, though it stung her eyes to do so, and at last freed her arms from his vice-grip to wind them around his waist. She felt utterly, blissfully surrounded. The man she loved was no mirage after all. She squeezed him and muttered, “If you do anything that stupid again, I’ll come back to Wildmount and set you on fire.”

At that, he laughed. He bent down to kiss her ear, and muttered into it, “Like a handful of lilies, my clever witch?”

“Yes,” she chuckled, and scratched her nails down his back, almost sharp enough to be a second threat. “Now promise me you’ll be good.”

“I solemnly swear,” he replied, and heaved a long, heartbroken sigh. She sensed a tension drawing tight inside him – something difficult he could not phrase. She drew back and looked him in the face. He smiled, but an intensity darkened his eyes. All at once, all over again, she was afraid.

“Sylas, what is it?”

Every slight shift in his expression enthralled her - the downward turn of his brows, the sudden focus, the way his lips parted for a tense breath long before he was ready to speak. At last, he framed her face with his hands. “Please, don’t misunderstand me, dearest. I earnestly want you to see Emon, and study, and solve all the mysteries of the world." His voice grew teasing, and she laughed, but their levity did not survive long. A weight had descended upon them, something intangible but inescapable, something that killed their jokes and forced their sincerity. Sylas continued, his voice measured and deep, and Delilah felt her breath grow short at his tone - “I’ve something to ask of you before you go.”

“Yes. Anything.”

His hands trailed down her neck, over her shoulders, and down her arms. They drifted down, down as he knelt on the cobbled road, and then he gripped her hands in his and looked up at her, entranced, possessed by a beautiful idea that she knew before he spoke it: “Marry me.”

The crickets buzzed. The stone cracked beneath her feet. The world was thunderous in its sudden silence. Harshly, airlessly, as if suffocating, she whispered, “What?”

“Marry me,” he repeated, already breathless himself. As he spoke, his own hands traveled up her wrists, her forearms, tightened and tugged, as if he were desperately trying to pull her to the ground with him. “Go and do what you must," he begged, "but do it as Lady Delilah Briarwood." She felt tears come into her eyes again, and he continued, heedless of her shock and pain "-Let every person who speaks your name know that I stand at your side, even at distance. Let me go with you in the only way I can. Take my name, take my title, and let us belong to each other, as we were always meant to. Marry me.”

Sylas stared up from the ground, shoulders tense, hands clawed. His words were demands, but his eyes held only pleas. An answer in the negative would have struck him down with the might of a deity’s bolt...but she had no such answer inside her. For once, she had no answers at all. Her only thought was of a name, ringing clear, repeating, like a beloved melody stuck in her head.

_Lady Delilah Briarwood._

She felt herself smile. In a voice that trembled with the weight of its words, she said, “Yes. Yes, I will. I will, Sylas-“

A smile broke across his face, bright, brilliant, a beautiful revelation, and she fell to her knees before him and kissed him. He caught her and held her tight again, and for a moment she was oblivious to the world - blind, deaf, absorbed in senseless elation. Then they were both laughing, laughing wildly, laughing into each other – kneeling in the dirt, she thought, like giddy children. She smudged his tears away with her thumbs, while he tried in vain to hide them with a bowed head, and she barely realized she was crying herself until her voice came out wavering and watery. “Do you have a ring?” she asked, and sniffed. Something she could take with her to Emon – something to trap this moment in her heart, even, as he said, at a distance.

“No,” he confessed, laughing. He stroked her back. “I wasn’t sure I had time – thought maybe you’d already left.”

“Without saying goodbye? My husband’s an idiot.”

He laughed - it sounded like it would have been a sarcastic chuckle, had he not been too sincerely happy to muster one - and pinched her at the waist so she squealed and giggled. He parroted, “ _Husband,_ ” and kissed her on the forehead over the noise. “Fiancé, Delilah, let’s not be so hasty.”

“Oh, you-“

She slapped him on the shoulder, lacking the proper expletive for the occasion. The agony of the previous moment had been swept away - this, instead - this was excessive, this was bliss and joy beyond what her little form could hold. She felt a desperate need to set something on fire again, to create some towering, crackling, ridiculous inferno. Another idea occurred to her (a little more reasonable, this time), and brightly, she continued, “Well, there you are. You’ve got something to occupy yourself with while I’m gone.”

“Plan a wedding?” he hummed, with a coy smile. “I can manage that, I think. Anything for my dear, precious wife.”

She stared at him, smiling too broadly to contain. She repeated, grinning, “Lady Delilah Briarwood.”

“Do you like it?”

She could not explain the feeling of taking his name – of becoming _herself -_ fulfilled, complete - becoming something she was always meant to be. She could only kiss him again, smiling at the ridiculousness of the question, and answer, “It’s perfect.”

\--

As Lady Delilah Briarwood left Wildmount, she would not stop crying through the night. She cried for most days along her journey - in the inns, in the carriages, and all across the sea. If you had asked, she would not have told you why she shed her tears; she did not know herself.

But looking back, she would swear that she knew, in some hidden part of her, exactly what she was leaving behind. That her risk would not pay; that her story, having reached the pinnacle of its potential, could only plunge forward to catastrophe.

Perhaps she did know. She had always known.


End file.
